larvatus prodeo
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Below are the 30 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Michael Zeleny" journal:[<< Previous 30 entries]
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12:10 pm
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HIC LOCUS EST UBI MORS GAUDET SUCCURRERE VITAE
Welcome to the online journal of larvatus. Stable texts are open to the general public. Squibs and sallies, schemes and stratagems, jaunts and taunts, are restricted to friends. Please note that locked texts subject to third party copyright are provided to my friends under the doctrine of fair use, subject to implied consent by all their readers to abstain from redistribution. Reciprocal friendship shall be extended to all sane, sound, and disinterested personae. Comments and critique are always welcome. Marriage proposals and death threats shall be entertained in the order received.
The House Rules are few and lax. All anonymous comments are initially screened. They shall be revealed or answered at your host’s discretion. All signed comments are initially presumed welcome, until and unless they cause an affront to your host. Thereupon their author shall become banned from further contributions to this journal. Otherwise, anything goes. SAY WHAT?
ÇA ?
Tristan Corbière
A treatise? You don’t say! I haven’t treated squat!
A study? Slothful wretch, my culture fetid rot.
A volume? Random heap, sheets stacked in disarray.
Good copy? Not with me enmired in the fray.
A poem? Not today, my lyre is being cleaned.
A book? Of fusty tomes far better to be weaned.
A song? Would that it were, my ear is made of tin.
Fun pastime? Sordid den, dire boredom dwells within.
A cadence? Rhythmic flow is broken by dull grind.
A product? I divide what others multiplied.
A story? Handicapped, my lame and laggard Muse.
Clear proof? My mind is fraught by grief and lit by booze.
High fashion? Wealth and style inform nowhere my dress.
Grandstanding or grand mal? My spasms fail to impress.
Evicted from the hall, I lurk behind the stage,
In transit, poised to choose: a joy house or a cage.
Too old? But to retire, my tenure won’t suffice.
Too young? My hectic life will rid me of this vice.
A sage, a slob, an ace, a master, and a clown,
A stud without a flock, a king without a crown.
THIS is without pretense, and yet a blatant pose.
It’s life and nothing but, confessed in deathless prose.
A masterpiece? Could be, I never made one yet!
A farce? A waste? A bomb? Decide and place your bet!
I bet… and I shall sign herewith my humble name;
My child shall overcome each tainted libel claim.
Through chance it will prevail, its fate a stroke of luck…
Art knows me not at all — and I don’t give a fuck.
— traduced by MZ, 6 September 2005
Tags: doggerel, vanity
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10:00 am
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for the anonymous troll
Over sixteen years online, I have received a broad spectrum of threats and pitches, and entertained a commensurate range of slurs and plaudits. This experience has crystallized two iron laws of online communications.
The first law is a corollary of Occam’s razor. No matter what you are promised or threatened on the Internet, the most you will get out of it is oral ministrations. In other words, there is no downside in moving virtual bluster to realspace. Yonder puffed-out sock puppet is as unlikely to escalate its verbiage to physical damage, as the heiress of an African potentate, to bestow her commission upon Americans paying their facilitation fees. By contrast, that virtual fellatrix yearning to reward your eloquence with expert suction may well come through as promised, especially if you overlook minor discrepancies ranging from mien to gender.
The second law of Internet intercourse is a corollary of the first. Only a clueless newbie responds personally to an anonymous troll. To illustrate its application, whenever one of the latter kind feels the urge to share its thoughts about anything but one of the former, it should take them instead to someone who can relate to its bogus persona. It makes no difference whether a figment of this sort touts itself as a public intellectual in mufti, or poses as a skank that services barnyard livestock for spare change. In the immortal words of Jack Nicholson, sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here.
A final notice to the insistent incognito. When you surpass words in punishing my excesses, make sure that your hostile deeds leave me unfit to retaliate. My reckoning will define the remainder of your life. It’s happened to your betters before. Don’t let it happen to you.
Tags: bullshit, stupidity, violence
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05:49 pm
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lesbian teachers, I can understand…
( But… )
Tags: crime, sex, stuipdity
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04:24 pm
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desperately seeking gypsies and nose rings
“Relocating bears is illegal in California, and a permit to execute a bear can only be issued to a homeowner if the animal has attacked people or livestock.”
ursi me comedant
Tags: animals, food, latin, persiflage, tasteless, violence
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12:31 am
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a malthusian nightmare
It is near future, and our planet is proliferating with humanity. You are a 28 year old man fleeing the roving bands of cannibals. Your only refuge is an uninhabited tropical island copiously supplied by coconuts and circled by schools of fish. Your only remaining concern is to satisfy your raging heterosexual libido in a politically correct fashion. Alas, you have no condoms, and your scruples debar you from orthogenital intercourse on pain of aggravating the global catastrophe. You must choose an unfailingly stimulating companion for the rest of your life. Unfortunately, your choices are limited.
Poll #1495193 Bend over and take it like a man!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4Which bloviatrix would you fuck in the ass, hard?
Tags: persiflage, politics, sex, sodomy
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10:33 pm
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l’homme aux rats
Anarchist, Symbolist, insubordinate dreyfusard, man about town, Octave Mirbeau is an indispensable maître mineur of the Third Republic. His most popular work, Le Journal d’une femme de chambre, merited film treatment by the greatest Latin directors of all times, Luis Buñuel and Jean Renoir. His most scandalous novel remains unfilmable. In Le Jardin des supplices, which appeared in 1899, at the height of the Dreyfus Affair, Mirbeau targeted fear and hatred, the twin foundations of bourgeois society, in a narrative arc traversing the terrain of desire and disgust to culminate in a strange sexual obsession. ( And what about the rats? ) As a rodent, the rat is both taxonomically and etymologically dedicated to gnawing, rodere. Its intelligence and tenacity culminate in omnivoracity tending towards the extreme forms of cannibalism, qualifying this potentially docile and easily trained animal as an exemplary consumer in the wild. Since its inception 110 years ago, Mirbeau’s conjuration of rodential ass torture has gnawed and wriggled its way through the margins of respectable culture. ( For example… )
In our own time, we find a more extroverted way of flaunting deceased rodents in a male posterior: ( TransRatFashion alert! )
…which after all, is only a contrapositive to the popular practice of not giving a rat’s ass.
Crossposted to ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) larvatus and ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) strange_tears.
Tags: animals, aristotle, cicero, french, gerbil-clap, latin, mirbeau, sex, violence, weber
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08:27 pm
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interplanetary pussyfooting
Ага, строчить кляузу на Марс—намного стрёмнее, чем писать предъяву Её Величеству. Одно дело—мирская владыка, другое—небесное светило.
Tags: lawyers, persiflage, pussy, russia, russian, russians
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09:07 pm
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h.l. mencken: a little book in c major
A LITTLE BOOK IN C MAJOR
H.L. MENCKEN
NEW YORK
JOHN LANE COMPANY
MCMXVI
I
Commissaire, commissaire,
Colin bat sa ménagère;
C’est un beau jour pour l’amour!
—Pierre Jean de Béranger
§1 Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another. ( Read more... )
THE END
Tags: america, humor, mencken, persiflage
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03:00 pm
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virtues and values in market exchanges
All appropriations and transfers of conventionally valued goods or services, be they consensual or coerced, are essentially self-regarding as regards their cost, but essentially other-regarding as regards their value. For consumable goods, the relevant distinction between their consumption and socially warranted dominium arises from Deuteronomy 23:24-25, as explained by John Kilcullen. To the extent that sex is valued conventionally rather than intrinsically, all varieties of sexual intercourse are likewise essentially other-regarding. In particular, while no one is qualified to speak for all sadomasochists, the following passage from a review by Charles Rosen is very much to the point:When I was writing a review of Alban Berg’s correspondence, I remarked to an elderly and very distinguished psychoanalyst that I was surprised by how many of Schoenberg’s students seemed to enjoy being so badly treated and humiliated by him. She replied, “I have no time to explain this just now, but I can assure you that there are a great many masochists and not nearly enough sadists to go around.” What is valued in all kinds of sex, as in all other kinds of conversation, is not the mere brunt of its experience, but also its mutuality.
Market exchanges of all sorts of goods or services are essentially other-regarding, not in regard of obtaining them at the lowest possible cost, but in regard of establishing and maintaining their value. In so far as an analogous situation obtains in communication, this is a matter of conventional values in the conventional Lewisian game-theoretic construal of convention as coordination. Notwithstanding any misgivings concerning the expense of spirit in a waste of shame, market exchanges are expected to leave each party with the impression that what they received in the exchange is worth more than what they gave up. In the normal course of events, a notional impression of increase in value would serve as well as, or even better than, an actual increase therein. Thus Max Weber’s criticism of Benjamin Franklin in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, that the appearance of honesty serves the same purpose as honesty itself, and hence an unnecessary surplus of this virtue would appear to Franklin’s eyes as unproductive waste. Weber concludes that Franklin purveys a strict utilitarianism, whereby the mere appearance of honesty (der Schein der Ehrlichkeit) is always sufficient when it accomplishes the end in view. But in the long run, such appearances can only be sustained by tacit collusion of both parties. The butcher who places his finger on the scale enters in a relation of mutual dependency with the carnivore who averts his eyes from this petty subterfuge. Likewise the wife who shores up her sex appeal with face paint and foundation garments, colluding with the husband who bears mute witness to her daily embellishments.
Consider sexual politics. In the context of a long-term romantic relationship, reciprocal constructive ambiguity manifests in the woman wondering whether the man is just using her for sex, while he wonders how long he can keep her guessing. The maintenance of this equilibrium depends on a delicate balance between competition and coordination, negotiated among the parties. This is where David Lewis’ analysis of convention may pay off. Lewisian conventions exemplify two main conditions:- Convention is a strict Nash equilibrium with no gain realizable from unilateral deviation by any party thereto, and a loss realized by any deviating party, with an additional coordination proviso that all parties prefer universal compliance in the convention, on condition that at least all but one comply to it.
- Convention is arbitrary in having an alternative that could serve equally well in its place.
Consider the case of corporate employment, where the corporation is tasked with creating the appearance of improvement in the lot of its employees over the scenario of their free agency. As explained by Ronald Coase, this improvement is due to amortizing the transaction costs of their initial association. The appearance of extra value accruing to the employees in this association, depends on coordination among its parties in representing real or imaginary long-term benefits of sticking together. Correlatively, the appearance of extra value accruing to the employer from the employees is a matter of coordinating their appearance of hard work sustained through brown-nosing and back-biting, and relieved by the meremost minimum of discreet sexual harassment and persiflage around the water cooler. And so on.
A Microsoft employee takes several years to vest into his stock options. In exchange, he gives up the opportunity of higher wages in the free market. (That may no longer be the case in the current economy, but let us set that aside.) The value of this long-term benefit depends on the interim growth in the Microsoft stock price. This dependence yields a motive for all Microsoft employees to prefer universal loyalty to their employees amongst their colleagues, on which see the pep talks by Steve Ballmer, with their disparate reception among the faithful and the unaffiliated. At the same time, when and if Google gets big enough to buy Microsoft, with all outstanding stock warrants subject to universal conversion, all current Microsoft employees would prefer a universal shift in loyalty to their new employer amongst their colleagues. In short, their loyalty is stable in being motivated by a prospective gain dependent on universal compliance, but arbitrary in lacking an essential connection to the fortunes of the brand.
An analogous situation appears to arise with any construal of value motivating economic exchanges putatively benefiting both parties. Indeed, it is hard to conceive of an alternative to construing it as a matter of coordination in the foregoing fashion, given that the labor theory and other unfashionable imputations of inherent value are unlikely to yield the preponderance of the “win-win” scenario. As for the aspect of virtue playing its part in market exchanges, its role appears to be taken by Frankfurtian bullshit serving as the counterpart of the mere appearance of honesty claimed by Weber to be necessary and sufficient therefor.
Tags: economics, game theory, persiflage, shakespeare, weber
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10:34 am
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better not to have been
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„Niemals geboren zu werden wäre das beste für die sterblichen Menschenkinder“, „Aber“, setzen die Weisen der „Fliegenden Blätter“ hinzu, „unter hunderttausend Menschen passiert dies kaum einem.“
Der moderne Zusatz zum alten Weisheitsspruch ist ein klarer Unsinn, der durch das anscheinend vorsichtige „kaum“ noch dümmer wird. Aber er knüpft als unbestreitbar richtige Einschränkung an den ersten Satz an, kann uns also die Augen darüber öffnen, daß jene mit Ehrfurcht vernommene Weisheit auch nicht viel besser als ein Unsinn ist. Wer nie geboren worden ist, ist überhaupt kein Menschenkind; für den gibt es kein Gutes und kein Bestes. Der Unsinn im Witz dient also hier zur Aufdeckung und Darstellung eines anderen Unsinns wie im Beispiel vom Artilleristen Itzig.
—Sigmund Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten, Deuticke, 1912, p. 45
‘Never to be born would be the best thing for mortal men.’ ‘But’, adds the philosophical comment in Fliegende Blätter, ‘this happens to scarcely one person in a hundred thousand.’
This modern addition to an ancient saw is an evident piece of nonsense, made sillier by the ostensibly cautious ‘scarcely’. But the addition is attached to the original statement as an indisputably correct limitation, and is thus able to open our eyes to the fact that this solemnly accepted piece of wisdom is itself not much better than a piece of nonsense. Anyone who is not born is not a mortal man at all, and there is no good and no best for him. Thus the nonsense in the joke serves to uncover and demonstrate another piece of nonsense, just as in the example of Artilleryman Itzig.
—Sigmund Freud, Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, translated by James Strachey, W.W. Norton & Co., 1990, pp. 65-66
I got a real depressing letter from my folks about two weeks ago, because I haven’t been taking real good care of my money. They said, ‘Sam, we can’t send you any more money. You’re out of control, and you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing with your cash. And… you’re old enough to be on your own.’ I said, ‘Oh, okay’… and I called them. I said, ‘Mom, get dad on the phone too, wake him up, I know it’s late, but I want you both to hear this. You know, before I was your little son. Before I was your baby—before I was your loan—I was a free spirit in the next stage of life. I walked in the cosmos, not imprisoned by a body of flesh, but free, in a pure body of light. There were no questions, only answers. No weaknesses, only strengths. I was light, I was truth, I was a spiritual being, I was a God!!! But you had to FUCK and bring my ass down HERE! I didn’t ask to be born! I didn’t call and say: ‘Hey, please have me so I could work in a fuckin’ Winchell’s someday!’ Now you want me to pay my own way? FUCK YOU! PICK UP THE FUCKIN’ CHECK, MOM! PICK IT UP!
—Sam Kinison |
This year’s winner of the Bookseller/Diagram prize for the oddest title of the year is Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification. Other finalists included How Green were the Nazis?, Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan, and the book I’m reviewing here. The title is indeed odd. But it isn’t intended merely to be catchy, another one of those volumes appealing on the cover but deadly dull within. Benatar appears genuinely to believe that we are all harmed, and fairly seriously harmed, by being brought into existence and that it would really be better, and better for us, had we never been born. There are two important and immediate objections: how can something that odd, that strange, possibly be true? And, if it is true, why don’t we all, or at least those who believe it, go and put an end to things now? Why is Benatar still with us? Is he still with us? He is, and he thinks he has an answer to these objections. I’ll come to these below.
[…]
So, give Benatar a charitable reading and there are still objections to be made. Give him what may in the end be a fairer reading, and the objections are stronger. Both in the paper and the book he argues thus: suppose you have to choose between two packages. The first contains something good and something bad, while the second contains something good and something neutral. The second package is to be preferred. But the first package is one in which we exist, and where our lives involve both goods and bads, or pleasures and pains. The second is one in which we don’t exist, and so there are no pains—something good, and no pleasures—something not bad, or neutral. So, on balance, existence is worse than non-existence. This is a dreadful argument. It’s most obviously dreadful in taking no account of the quantities of pleasure and pain involved. You might think that Benatar must at least anticipate this objection. Certainly in the paper he doesn’t. Not so in the book. There (pp. 45-47) he does attempt to address this challenge. But as he appears almost altogether to misunderstand it, there is just no force in his reply.
— Reviewed by Christopher Belshaw, The Open University
David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 45-47:
[…]
Quadrant (1) must be negative, because it is bad, and quadrants (2) and (3) must be positive because they are good. (I assume that (3) must be as good as (1) is bad. That is, if (1)=−n, then (3)=+n.) Since (4) is not bad (and not good either), it should be neither positive nor negative but rather neutral.
Employing the value assignments of Figure 2.4 we add (1) and (2) in order to determine the value of A, and then compare this with the sum of (3) and (4), which is the value of B. Doing this, we find that A is preferable to B where (2) is more than twice the value of (1).35 [Where (2) is only twice the value of (1), A and B have equal value and thus neither coming into existence nor never coming into existence is preferable.] There are numerous problems with this. For instance, as I shall show in the first section of the next chapter, it is not only the ratio of pleasure to pain that determines the quality of a life, but also the sheer quantity of pain. Once a certain threshold of pain is passed, no amount of pleasure can compensate for it.
But the best way to show that Figure 2.4 is mistaken is to apply the reasoning behind Figure 2.4 to the analogy of H (Healthy) and S (Sick) mentioned earlier.
Following Figure 2.5, it would be better to be S than H if the value of (2) were more than twice the value of (1). (This presumably would be the case where the amount of suffering that (2) saves S is more than twice the amount S actually suffers.) But this cannot be right, for surely it is always better to be H (a person who never gets sick and is thus not disadvantaged by lacking the capacity for quick recovery). The whole point is that (2) is good for S but does not constitute an advantage over H. By assigning a positive charge to (2) and a ‘0’ to (4), Figure 2.5 suggests that (2) is an advantage over (4), but it quite clearly is not. The assignment of values in Figure 2.5, and hence also in Figure 2.4, must be mistaken. 36 [To take the implications of the value assignments in Fig. 2.5 for Fig. 2.4 as evidence that the analogy between the two cases must be inapt is another instance of treating the avoidance of my conclusion as axiomatic.]
To recap, David Benatar argues that uncontroversial symmetry between the presence of pain being bad and the presence of pleasure being good does not seem to apply to the absence of pain and pleasure. On the contrary, it strikes him as true that the absence of pain is good even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone, whereas the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom that absence is a deprivation. Consequently, the absence of any possible subject of pain and pleasure would amount to an overall good in the balance of his absent pains and pleasures.
It is equally uncontroversial, and uncontested by Benatar, that absence of pleasure in an extant subject does add up to a deprivation, whence the traditional recognition of acedia, a condition of sloth or torpor leading to listlessness and want of interest in life, as one of the seven deadly sins. It might be argued that the absence of any possible subject of pain and pleasure would amount to a deprivation to his potential creators. Thus within the same framework of sin and salvation, potential parents may suffer from a lack of progeny required to honor them pursuant to the Fifth Commandment, just as God may suffer from a lack of humans required to honor Him pursuant to its predecessors. But this teleological account preempts the utilitarian reckoning of the presence and absence of pain and pleasure. Likewise the human duty recognized by Socrates in the Phaedo at 62b-c, to live as a ward (κτῆμα) of the gods, consigned to their care (ἐπιμελέομαι). The key consideration here is that utilitarianism arises as an exclusive alternative to imputations of human duties or purposes and narratological construals of human lives not lending themselves to a scalar summation of pleasures and pains. It is therefore pointless to bring up such imputations and construals as conclusive rebuttals of Benatar’s utilitarian argument. There are good reasons for rejecting utilitarianism, but the spirit of charity requires the philosopher to set them aside in assessing the merits of arguments made within its tradition.
In this context belongs a critical response to a passage from John Bunyan cited in an earlier discussion of Benatar on Crooked Timber:The figure in the Sermon on the Mount, contrasting the straight and narrow way to salvation with the broad highway to destruction, has been the basis of a number of sustained allegories, the best known being Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. To keep the figure of a way going for a whole book, the course pursued has to be a very labourious one: this is theologically defensible for Bunyan, even though we can see that the difficulty of the journey is a technical as well as a religious requirement. Toward the end of the second book Bunyan says:Some also have wished that the next way to their Father’s house were here, that they might be troubled no more with either hills or mountains to go over; but the way is the way, and there is an end. [fn. 41 See John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners and The Pilgrim’s Progress from this World to that which is to come, ed. Roger Sharrock (London: Oxford University Press, 1966), 355 (pt. 2).] One wonders if there is not a suppressed voice also in Bunyan’s mind asking why we have to be stuck with this spiteful and malicious God who puts so incredibly difficult an obstacle course between ourselves and himself. In the great danse macabre with which the second book concludes, the dying Valiant-for-Truth says, “Though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am,” [fn. 42 Pilgrim’s Progress, 397 (pt. 2).] where the suppressed voice is almost audible. When there are dissenting voices like this murmuring in the subtext, one wonders if the author does not feel some difficulty about his choice of metaphor.
—Words With Power: Being a Second Study of ’The Bible and Literature’, The Collected Works of Northrop Frye, Vol. 26, University of Toronto Press, 2008, pp. 90-91 Northrop Frye’s apprehension of a suppressed voice in Bunyan’s mind belongs to the spectrum of legitimate reasons for purging ethical thought of duties and purposes along with narratives that give rise thereto, reducing it to a dispassionate calculus of scalar values. As a famous philosopher pointed out, there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Accordingly, saying that an argument is bad without a thought to back it up, amounts to nothing. Likewise gainsaying a premiss in the calculus of utility, in so far as it amounts to its thoughtless contradiction. The utilitarian project may be a failure, but it begins and ends in rational thought, and deserves to be addressed by rational means.
Insisting in response to Benatar, that some pleasures are worth the pains, let alone recognizing the existence of masochists taking pleasure in pain, gets us nowhere near an argument as an intellectual process comprising a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition. The correct utilitarian response to invocations of sadomasochism is reflected in Harsanyi’s distinction between self-regarding and other-regarding utility functions and preferences. Benatar’s argument would stand after discounting all social and empathetic factors. All such factors ought to be discounted in considering, of an individual life, whether or not it is worth being brought into existence. After all, the masochist patient does not take pleasure in any old pain, but revels in being inflicted pain by another agent. So the pain of natural suffering, as distinct from the social kind, suffices to motivate the top half of Benatar’s Figure 2.4. Pain is bad and pleasure is good; whereas lack of pain is bad, but lack of pleasure is indifferent, unless it is a privation. In the balance, better not to create a potential subject for such privation.
It might be objected that a masochist before God could take pleasure in the pain of cancer, as a means of proving himself equal to the challenges raised by his heavenly Father. This is the position of John Bunyan’s Valiant-for-Truth, shored up by many modern luminaries. Thus George Bernard Shaw:All that you miss in Shakespeare you find in Bunyan, to whom the true heroic came quite obviously and naturally. The world was to him a more terrible place than it was to Shakespeare; but he saw through it a path at the end of which a man might look not only forward to the Celestial City, but back on his life and say: “Tho’ with great difficulty I am got hither,—yet now I do not repent me of all the trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get them.” The heart vibrates like a bell to such an utterance as this: to turn from it to “ Out, out, brief candle,” and “ The rest is silence,” and “We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded by a sleep” is to turn from life, strength, resolution, morning air and eternal youth, to the terrors of a drunken nightmare.
—“Better than Shakespeare”, in Dramatic Opinions and Essays with an Apology by G. Bernard Shaw, New York, Brentano, 1906, Vol. 2, p. 147 And thus Robert Louis Stevenson:Last and most remarkable, ‘My sword,’ says the dying Valiant-for-Truth, he in whom Great-heart delighted, ‘my sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my pilgrimage, and my courage and skill to him that can get it.’ And after this boast, more arrogantly unorthodox than was ever dreamed of by the rejected Ignorance, we are told that ‘all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side.’
—Robert Louis Stevenson, “Bagster’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’”, in Sketches, Criticisms, etc., New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1898, p. 215 The anticipation of trumpets sounding on the other side may well inspire the faithful to withstand the pains of earthly existence. But merely pointing out that the ultimate pleasure of reuniting with God, or some interim ersatz thereof, would be worth the pains that precede it, is irrelevant in the setting of Benatar’s decision matrix. For this point amounts to a postulation that foreclosing the possibility of future pleasure in an as yet unrealized subject always already amounts to a privation. While this postulate is well suited to a hopeful narrative of posthumous salvation, it is less apt for a pure spiritual being about to be imprisoned by a body of flesh, and bears no relevance to a reckoning of worldly utility in prospective lives.
While social and empathetic factors are essential constituents in a worthwhile life, their role in evaluating whether an ongoing life is worthwhile does not find any counterparts in deciding whether a prospective life is worth being brought into existence. There may be no grounds for disputing that all social and empathetic factors ought to be discounted in considering, of an individual life, whether or not it is worth being brought into existence, just as there may be no actual lives having been brought into existence in complete disregard of these factors. In other words, while people invariably have children for selfish reasons, the only good reason to have a child is for its own sake. Some variety of methodological solipsism is indispensable as the correct framework for such deliberation. It may be impossible to understand a person in separation from other people or in separation from his environment. But there is a crucial difference between understanding an actual person in his connection with other people and his environment, and deliberating on the merits of bringing into existence a potential person with merely conjectural interpersonal and environmental connections.
In this regard, Benatar’s observation has devastating consequences for the utilitarian assessment of the choice to bring a new life into existence. If there is nothing bad about never coming into existence, whereas there is something bad about coming into existence, it is always preferable to choose a scenario that involves nothing bad. The same conclusion extends to the voluntary acceptance of bad pains in order to achieve greater pleasures, pursuant to Benatar’s analogy between existence versus non-existence and sickness versus health, as reproduced above.
Reproduced for, and summarized from, a discussion on CHORA; also see an earlier discussion on Crooked Timber.
Tags: bacchylides, classics, comedy, death, freud, game theory, herodotus, philosophy, shakespeare
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06:52 pm
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honor and dignity in the american soul
In his account of “the stark, enduring figure” of James Fenimore Cooper’s Deerslayer in his 1923 Studies in Classic American Literature, D.H. Lawrence observes:He is neither spiritual nor sensual. He is a moralizer, but he always tries to moralize from actual experience, not from theory. He says: ‘Hurt nothing unless you’re forced to.’ Yet he gets his deepest thrill of gratification, perhaps, when he puts a bullet through the heart of a beautiful buck, as it stoops to drink at the lake. Or when he brings the invisible bird fluttering down in death, out of the high blue. ‘Hurt nothing unless you’re forced to.’ And yet he lives by death, by killing the wild things of the air and earth.
It’s not good enough.
But you have there the myth of the essential white America. All the other stuff, the love, the democracy, the floundering into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has never yet melted. A recent treatment of the essential American soul in an article by Jill Lepore in the New Yorker discusses murder in America within the conceptual framework of honor and dignity, in reference to work by the late Eric Monkkonen and the ongoing Pieter Spierenburg. ( Read more... )
Crossposted to larvatus, history, and guns.
Tags: exceptionalism, guns, history, politics, sociology, violence, weber
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06:16 pm
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the necessity of acedia
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Lo naturale è sempre sanza errore,
ma l’altro puote errar per malo obietto
o per troppo o per poco di vigore.
The natural is always without error,
but the other may err through an evil object
or through too much or too little vigor.
—Dante, Purgatorio, Canto 17, 94-96 |
“To love is to risk not being loved in return.” This slogan, sometimes traced to Leo F. Buscaglia, or credited to Rollo May, proliferates in self-help manuals, many of them cast in a religious mold. Therein lies a contradiction. If God is love, he cannot but love every man. Then, if to love is to risk not being loved in return, it follows that men cannot love God for want of risk of not being loved by Him.
Nothing in this rebuttal depends on the meaning of is. If God is love, the inference goes through with the copula being interpreted as a relation of identity, predication, or belonging. It might be argued that in loving God man runs the risk of not being loved in return, in the event of His non-existence. But it is implausible that love—unlike its collateral attitudes such as fear—could be predicated without presupposing the existence of the lover and the beloved alike. There is something wrong with our homiletic premisses. Love does not require the risk of not being loved in return. Or else, God is something other than love.
Tags: god, logic, love, religion
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03:41 pm
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max weber on starting and ending fights
Welcher Mensch wird sich vermessen, die Ethik der Bergpredigt, etwa den Satz: „Widerstehe nicht dem Übel“ oder das Bild von der einen und der anderen Backe, „wissenschaftlich widerlegen“ zu wollen? Und doch ist klar: es ist, innerweltlich angesehen, eine Ethik der Würdelosigkeit, die hier gepredigt wird: man hat zu wählen zwischen der religiösen Würde, die diese Ethik bringt, und der Manneswürde, die etwas ganz anderes predigt: „Widerstehe dem Übel,—sonst bist du für seine Übergewalt mitverantwortlich.“ Je nach der letzten Stellungnahme ist für den Einzelnen das eine der Teufel und das andere der Gott, und der Einzelne hat sich zu entscheiden, welches für ihn der Gott und welches der Teufel ist. Und so geht es durch alle Ordnungen des Lebens hindurch.
What man will take upon himself the attempt to “refute scientifically” the ethic of the Sermon on the Mount? For instance, the proposition, “Resist no evil” or the image of turning the other cheek? And yet it is clear, from a worldly perspective, that an ethic of indignity is being preached here; one has to choose between the religious dignity that this ethic confers and the dignity of manly conduct that preaches something quite different: “Resist evil, lest you be jointly responsible for its empire.” According to our ultimate standpoint, the one is of the devil and the other of God, and the individual has to decide, which for him is God, and which is the devil. And so it goes through all the orders of life.
Befreien wir es aber zunächst von einer ganz trivialen Verfälschung. Es kann nämlich zunächst die Ethik auftreten in einer sittlich höchst fatalen Rolle. Nehmen wir Beispiele. Sie werden selten finden, daß ein Mann, dessen Liebe sich von einer Frau ab- und einer andern zuwendet, nicht das Bedürfnis empfindet, dies dadurch vor sich selbst zu legitimieren, daß er sagt: sie war meiner Liebe nicht wert, oder sie hat mich enttäuscht, oder was dergleichen „Gründe“ mehr sind. Eine Unritterlichkeit, die zu dem schlichten Schicksal: daß er sie nicht mehr liebt, und daß die Frau das tragen muß, in tiefer Unritterlichkeit sich eine „Legitimität“ hinzudichtet, kraft deren er für sich ein Recht in Anspruch nimmt und zu dem Unglück noch das Unrecht auf sie zu wälzen trachtet. Ganz ebenso verfährt der erfolgreiche erotische Konkurrent: der Gegner muß der wertlosere sein, sonst wäre er nicht unterlegen. Nichts anderes ist es aber selbstverständlich, wenn nach irgendeinem siegreichen Krieg der Sieger in würdeloser Rechthaberei beansprucht: ich siegte, denn ich hatte recht. Oder, wenn jemand unter den Fürchterlichkeiten des Krieges seelisch zusammenbricht und nun, anstatt schlicht zu sagen: es war eben zu viel, jetzt das Bedürfnis empfindet, seine Kriegsmüdigkeit vor sich selbst zu legitimieren, indem er die Empfindung substituiert: ich konnte das deshalb nicht ertragen, weil ich für eine sittlich schlechte Sache fechten mußte. Und ebenso bei dem im Kriege Besiegten. Statt nach alter Weiber Art nach einem Kriege nach dem „Schuldigen“ zu suchen,—wo doch die Struktur der Gesellschaft den Krieg erzeugte—, wird jede männliche und herbe Haltung dem Feinde sagen: „Wir verloren den Krieg—ihr habt ihn gewonnen. Das ist nun erledigt: nun laßt uns darüber reden, welche Konsequenzen zu ziehen sind entsprechend den sachlichen Interessen, die im Spiel waren, und—die Hauptsache—angesichts der Verantwortung vor der Zukunft, die vor allem den Sieger belastet.“ Alles andere ist würdelos und rächt sich. Verletzung ihrer Interessen verzeiht eine Nation, nicht aber Verletzung ihrer Ehre, am wenigsten eine solche durch pfäffische Rechthaberei. Jedes neue Dokument, das nach Jahrzehnten ans Licht kommt, läßt das würdelose Gezeter, den Haß und Zorn wieder aufleben, statt daß der Krieg mit seinem Ende wenigstens sittlich begraben würde. Das ist nur durch Sachlichkeit und Ritterlichkeit, vor allem nur: durch Würde möglich. Nie aber durch eine „Ethik“, die in Wahrheit eine Würdelosigkeit beider Seiten bedeutet. Anstatt sich um das zu kümmern, was den Politiker angeht: die Zukunft und die Verantwortung vor ihr, befaßt sie sich mit politisch sterilen, weil unaustragbaren Fragen der Schuld in der Vergangenheit. Dies zu tun, ist politische Schuld, wenn es irgendeine gibt. Und dabei wird überdies die unvermeidliche Verfälschung des ganzen Problems durch sehr materielle Interessen übersehen: Interessen des Siegers am höchstmöglichen Gewinn—moralischen und materiellen—, Hoffnungen des Besiegten darauf, durch Schuldbekenntnisse Vorteile einzuhandeln: wenn es irgend etwas gibt, was „gemein“ ist, dann dies, und das ist die Folge dieser Art von Benutzung der „Ethik“ als Mittel des „Rechthabens“.
First, let us free ourselves from a quite trivial falsification, that ethics may first arise in a role that is highly compromised morally. Let us consider examples. Rarely will you find that a man whose love turns from one woman to another feels no need to legitimate this before himself by saying: she was not worthy of my love, or, she has disappointed me, or whatever other like “reasons” exist. This is an attitude that, with a profound lack of chivalry, adds a fancied “legitimacy” to the plain fact that he no longer loves her and that the woman has to bear it. By virtue of this “legitimation”, the man claims a right for himself and besides causing the misfortune seeks to put her in the wrong. Likewise, for the successful amatory competitor, the adversary must be less worthy, otherwise he would not have lost out. It is no different, of course, if after a victorious war the victor in undignified self-righteousness claims, “I have won because I was right”. Or, if somebody under the frightfulness of war collapses psychologically, and instead of simply saying it was just too much, he feels the need of legitimizing his war weariness to himself by substituting the feeling, “I could not bear it because I had to fight for a morally bad cause”. And likewise with the defeated in war. Instead of searching like old women for the “guilty one” after the war—given a situation wherein the structure of society produced the war—everyone with a manly and controlled attitude would tell the enemy: “We lost the war. You have won it. That is now all over. Now let us discuss what conclusions must be drawn according to the objective interests that came into play, and what is the main thing in view of the responsibility towards the future that above all burdens the victor.” Anything else is undignified and will rebound. A nation forgives if its interests have been damaged, but no nation forgives if its honor has been offended, especially by a bigoted self-righteousness. Every new document that comes to light after decades revives the undignified lamentations, the hatred and scorn, instead of allowing the war at its end to be buried, at least morally. This is possible only through objectivity and chivalry and above all only through dignity. But never is it possible through an “ethic”, which in truth signifies a lack of dignity on both sides. Instead of being concerned with what the politician is interested in, the future and the responsibility towards the future, this ethic is concerned with politically sterile questions of past guilt, which are not to be settled politically. To act in this way is politically guilty, if such guilt exists at all. And it overlooks the unavoidable falsification of the whole problem, through very material interests: namely, the victor's interest in the greatest possible moral and material gain; the hopes of the defeated to trade in advantages through confessions of guilt. If anything is “vulgar”, then, this is, and it is the result of this fashion of exploiting “ethics” as a means of “being in the right”.
Tags: german, philosophy, translation, weber
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03:21 pm
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a slogan for two anniversaries
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Ἡράκλειτος τὸ ἀντίξουν συμφέρον καὶ ἐκ τῶν διαφερόντων καλλίστην ἁρμονίαν καὶ πάντα κατ᾽ ἔριν γίνεσθαι: ἐξ ἐναντίας δὲ τούτοις ἄλλοι
Heracleitus says, ‘Opposition unites,’ and ‘The fairest harmony springs from difference,’ and ‘'Tis strife that makes the world go on.’
—Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1155b1-6, translated by J. Bywater
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Thirty-three years ago the author of these screeds walked free after serving a fifteen day sentence for petty hooliganism with twenty-two codefendants, counting among the first Soviet political protesters to get away with a slap on the wrist. The Berlin Wall came down thirteen years later, to the day. Coincidence? You decide.
Meanwhile, the philosophy of freedom is making giant strides in Russia. On 18 April 2009, Vadim Karastelev, head of the local Human Rights Committee, protested the curfew forbidding anyone under 18 years of age from appearing in the streets of Krasnodar region by displaying a sign with the slogan “Freedom is not given, it is taken”, a paraphrase of an analogous quotation about rights taken from a play by Maxim Gorky:Прав—не дают, права—берут… Человек должен сам себе завоевать права, если не хочет быть раздавленным грудой обязанностей…
Rights aren’t given, rights are taken… Man must fight to win his rights if he doesn’t want to be crushed by a mountain of duties… Herewith the expert philosophical analysis rendered in connection with his public display: ( Read more... ) Vadim Karastelev’s slogan echoes the combative demon of Charles Baudelaire:Celui-là seul est l’égal d’un autre, qui le prouve, et celui-là seul est digne de la liberté, qui sait la conquérir.
Only he is the equal of another, who proves it, and only he is worthy of liberty, who can conquer it. In his turn, Baudelaire drew upon Goethe’s Faust calling for free humanity jointly creating universal welfare in a free society:
Ja! diesem Sinne bin ich ganz ergeben,
das ist der Weisheit letzter Schluß:
Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das Leben,
der täglich sie erobern muß. |
This is the final product of my strife,
The greatest wisdom mankind ever knew:
He only earns his freedom and his life,
Who boldly conquers them each day anew. |
The Faustian maxim is infinitely malleable, lending itself as the populist motto for the National Socialism of Alfred Rosenberg, the Marxism of Ernst Thälmann, and the dissident humanism of Andrei Sakharov. May it serve as the battle cry for the advent of freedom in Russia.
Tags: anarchism, baudelaire, french, german, greek, heraclitus, lawyers, philosophy, politics, russia, russian, translation
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10:27 am
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сообщение для бликсофанаточек
mutter_nacht:
Сообщение для бликсофанаточек. Смотрите, какой лол: у Зеленого еще не прошел баттхерт. Блиа, уже десять лет прошло, пора бы успокоиться уже…
larvatus:
Сообщение для бликсофанаточек. Смотрите, какой лол:
Уж лучше смотрите сюда.
mutter_nacht:
о, вы еще и мониторите ссылки на свою жежешечку, я в восторге.
так забавно, что есть люди, которых настолько сильно волнуют отношения Бликсы и Эрин. они прям таки как настоящие звезды, которых знают чуть больше, чем три с половиной человека.
меня волнует вопрос: почему “blood money from Min” и почему Эрин “chose the career path of a professional victim”? она выдумала всю эту историю? потому что в ином случае я не вижу причин, почему вы осуждаете ее, а не ее семью. не то чтобы я была фанаточкой Эрин, совсем наоборот даже, но ваша ненависть мне тоже как-то не совсем понятна.
larvatus:
Не путайте презрение с ненавистью. Какой вменяемый человек сможет ненавидеть такое ничтожество? Насчёт пожизненного заклада девического влагалища, скажу лишь, что у его владелицы когда-то наблюдались другие профессиональные возможности.
mutter_nacht:
вменяемый человек не уделяет столько внимания презираемому объекту, вам не кажется? вас волнуют упущенные провессиональные возможности владелицы влагалища? какая вам разница? что плохого в том, что она потребовала компенсацию за подобное обращение с собой? насиловать собственных детей - это же как-то ненормально вроде, а из от ваших постов создается впечатление, что вы больше сочувствуете отцу Эрин, чем ей самой.
larvatus:
Представьте себе, что у Вас имеется пенис, малолетнее дитя, и амбиция приобретения астрономического состояния. Представили? А теперь задайте себе вопрос, станете ли Вы при этих условиях совать первое во второе, ставя под угрозу достижение третьего. Я всё это к тому, что где у батюшки непреодолимое влечение, там у доченьки трезвый расчёт.
mutter_nacht:
какие-то взаимоисключающие параграфы
Представили? А теперь задайте себе вопрос, станете ли Вы при этих условиях совать первое во второе, ставя под угрозу достижение третьего.
ну. я бы не стала. и любой нормальный человек тоже не стал бы, даже если исключить из задачи третье.
где у батюшки непреодолимое влечение
то есть, батюшка все же стал. я не понимаю: насильника должно оправдывать то, что его влечение было непреодолимым и то, что он многим рисковал?
или все же никто ничего никуда не совал? тогда я не понимаю, к чему здесь фраза про непреодолимое влечение.
или если Эрин на самом деле не испытывает ужасных душевных мук из-за этого изнасилования, она вообще должна про него забыть и никому не рассказывать?
larvatus:
По закону, трезвый расчёт в составе преступления осуждается строже, чем импульсивное и непреодолимое влечение.
mutter_nacht:
конечно. но мне кажется, что изнасилование собственного ребенка и отсуживание денег у изнасиловавшего отца — это преступления разного порядка, разной тяжести. и изнасилование здесь более тяжкое. я вообще не понимаю, о чем мы здесь спорим, это же изнасилование собственного несовершеннолетнего ребенка. вы его предлагаете оправдывать как “просто папа очень любит тебя”?
larvatus:
Я никого не оправдываю, и «humani nihil a me alienum puto», но трезвый расчёт в долгосрочном злоупотреблении своими доброжелателями мне менее понятен, чем импульсивное и непреодолимое влечение к ебле своей дочки.
alice_yustas_r:
larvatus:
с точностью до наоборот:
Pedicabo ego illos et irrumabo.
alice_yustas_r:
Re: с точностью до наоборот:
Катулл плачет кровавыми слезами и вертится в гробу(
mutter_nacht:
Re: с точностью до наоборот:
ваше поведение очень любопытно. я, конечно, понимаю, что женщина, для которой вы так много сделали, оставила вас ради какого-то сомнительного престарелого транса, который интересуется только ее деньгами, и у которого, к тому же, уже и не стоит (по вашему утверждению). понятно, что это обидно и бесит. но через десять лет продолжать обсуждать эту историю, да еще и заходить в журналы фанаточек Нойбаутен и доказывать, какое Бликса говно… это уже слишком. я не понимаю, чего вы хотите добиться? чтобы весь мир разделял ваше презрение к Жу и Баргельду? ваш эпический пост с письмами все заинтересованные уже давно прочитали и сделали выводы. или не сделали, потому что лично мне все равно, что у Эрин было тяжелое детство и деревянные игрушки, прибитые к полу, и каким именно образом она получила свои деньги. потому что для меня есть конечный результат: музыка Нойбаутен. я знаю, что без Эрин Нойбаутен уже давно не существовали бы. и что она позволяет делать им то, что они хотят, а не то, что хорошо продается. если для этого Бликса должен буквально продавать себя (я ему, конечно, сочувствую), но если он считает это приемлемым для себя, то это его дело.
larvatus:
Re: с точностью до наоборот:
Вы ничего не понимаете. Меня никто не оставлял ради какого-то сомнительного престарелого транса. Начиная с 1997 года, у меня с нынешней «мадам Деньжат» были сугубо дружеские и деловые отношения. Следующие два года она проживала в моём доме вместе со своим бойфрендом и его зловонными кисками. Более того, в конце 1999 года, она слёзно выпросила у меня и у моей семьи материальную помощь и моральную поддержку для домогательств в адрес Вашего героя и для извлечения компенсации за злоебучесть из её детоёбного батюшки. В то же самое время, она безвозвратно позаимствовала всё, что смогла у наших общих друзей. За все эти заботы они получили хуй на палочке, а я заимел сверхнаглый наезд от её родителей и их многомиллиардной корпорации. Предлагаю переосмыслить Ваши понятия в свете этой информации.
Что же касается Вашего конечного музыкального результата, все люди вправе делать то, что они хотят, а не то, что хорошо продается. Именно на этих основаниях я совершаю свой собственный сверхнаглый наезд на крупнейшую компанию венчурного капитала и сопряжённых лизоблюдов и психопатов. В этом заключается мой собственный перформанс. Мне очень жаль, что он Вам не по душе, но я представляю его совсем не ради Вас
mutter_nacht:
Re: с точностью до наоборот:
мы вот тут втроем прочитали эту вашу историю и не поняли: зачем позволять кому-то пользоваться собой, а потом страдать из-за этого? вы тоже старательно изображаете из себя жертву. в свете представленной выше информации я все равно не понимаю, почему нужно продолжать даже через 10 лет продолжать писать в интернете пространные высеры на эту тему.
Мне очень жаль, что он Вам не по душе, но я представляю его совсем не ради Вас
наверное, именно поэтому вы пишете уже пятнадцатый комментарий в моем блоге.
larvatus:
Re: с точностью до наоборот:
Позволю себе напомнить Вам моё предложение представить себе, что у Вас имеется пенис. Из этой предпосылки проистекут дополнительные возможности межличностных сношений. Иначе говоря, Ваша пассивная позиция бликсофанаточки дополнится хотя бы умозрительно активной ролью заядлого прорывателя. Как сказано выше, pedicabo ego illos et irrumabo.
А насчёт «ради кого», Вам сюда.
Tags: anarchism, degenerates, russian, sex, webex
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06:22 pm
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frequently asked questions
Q: Who are you?
A: I am the owner of this tribute to Subrah Iyar and his friends. My name is Michael Zeleny. I was born on 26 February 1958 in Moscow. I was raised in Odessa, attending High School No. 116, appearing on the stage of the Opera Theater, and winning the regional Olympiads in mathematics and physics for three years in a row. My family followed me out of the U.S.S.R. in 1977. Since then I have lived in Rome, Chicago, New York City, Cambridge, and Los Angeles. I attended U.C.L.A. between 1986 and 1990 and graduated from Harvard in 1993 with a degree in formal philosophy and assorted humanities. I co-edited a collection of papers in memory of Alonzo Church and serve as an editor of his Collected Works. I am a lumpen-intellectual Usenetter designated as a Net legend in the category of Lesser Lights. My pedantic humor is collected in a LiveJournal blog. My assault philosophy has caused the allegedly voluntary exile from the U.S.A. of incestuous child rapist Min Zhu, co-founder and former President and CTO of WebEx, and father of my former partner in business and romance, Erin Zhu, who is currently married to Blixa Bargeld, the leader of German pop group Einstürzende Neubauten. You are faced with my performance.
Q: What have you got against Min Zhu, his family and friends, and his company WebEx?
A: A company that I founded and operated with Erin Zhu did business with the rest of the Zhu family and their ventures since before their founding of WebEx Communications, an online conferencing company. In 1999 New Enterprise Associates, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, funded WebEx, which was eventually acquired by Cisco for $3.2 billion. Min Zhu, the founder of WebEx, remains listed on the NEA roster as a "Senior Venture Advisor". His company, Cybernaut Education, collaborates with his wife Susan Xu co-founder of WebEx and enabler of his rape of their daughter, in operating private schools in California and Canada. Min’s yearning for fresh meat continues unabated.
In 2001, after my partner Erin Zhu stole the stock shares that WebEx owed to my company, I asked its CEO Subrah Iyar to set matters right. In response, I received anonymous death threats made in the names and on the behalves of Min Zhu and WebEx. The language of these threats echoed the terms with which Min Zhu had indimidated his fourteen-year-old daughter Erin into yielding to his sexual advances thirteen years earlier. After I filed my lawsuit, the Zhus’ lawyer, who had previously represented Min Zhu and Susan Xu against their daughter’s claim for childhood sexual abuse, threatened me with the destruction of people’s lives. Three years later, while my lawsuit was pending, my father Isaak, plaintiff in a related lawsuit against Erin Zhu, was killed by an apartment fire. I hired a retired LAFD captain to investigate the cause and origins of this fire. He told me that it appears to have started in several places.
After my father’s death I went public with my story. On May Day of 2005 I staged a protest at the WebEx User Conference in San Francisco. In response, WebEx shut down its conference and announced Min Zhu’s “retirement” and departure for China. Several months later, NEA’s General Partner Scott Sandell funded Min Zhu’s new business in his homeland. Min Zhu continues to work for WebEx under the table. That is what I am protesting with my personal appearances and this website.
Q: Why should we believe that Min Zhu or WebEx threatened your life? Aren’t you making it up to make your “enemy” seem evil?
A: The death threats made against me in the names and on the behalves of Min Zhu and WebEx since 25 December 2001 have been independently witnessed and well documented. Their documentation sufficed for Judge Adajian of Los Angeles Superior Court to acquit me on 11 April 2003 of weapons carry charges on the grounds of necessity, in a bench trial of case No. 2CR11665. In accounting for his acquittal, he said about me: “I think he had a good-faith belief in the threat. He did go to the police. He did do the right thing.” That is the only kind of credibility that I care to project.
Q: So your “assault philosophy” involves publicizing unsavory rumors about the Zhus and their entourage? Why are you doing that?
A: Because everything I say is true and readily verifiable, and because all facts that involve human rights deserve publicity.
Q: Even if the outrageous claims that you make here are true, how can you justify making all these scandals public?
A: If I had no legs and a place to go, I would hope for someone unencumbered by my handicap to help me in reaching my destination. If I had no shame and a cause for remorse, I would hope for someone unencumbered by my handicap to help me in making my contrition. As I hope to get, so I give.
Q: So you are a chumped ex-boyfriend posting this naked picture of Erin Zhu to shame her? Shame on you!
A: Therein lies a tail. For three years prior to the time that picture was taken, Erin and I had been nothing but friends and business partners. Most of the interim she spent sharing my living quarters with her boyfriend Brannon Wright and his stinky kitties, fantasizing about the business we were always about to build together. The picture shows her on the road, engaged in the twin pursuits of “cold cash”, true love of Bargeld and fuck-you money of her parents, funded by loans from my father and our friends. The camera that she holds in her hands belonged to our company, and Erin returned it with the photo inside, just before she welshed on her loans. I concluded that she wanted to share, and I am sharing alike.
Q: So you hate her for cheating you more than you hate her father for threatening your life?
A: Do not mistake contempt for hatred. I hate neither of them. That said, I have more understanding for a crime of passion than I do for cold-blooded fraud. A child rapist acting on impulse retains more humanity than the victim who uses her childhood suffering as a setup for a serial con. But a man who rapes his own child commingles fraud with sexual violence by exploiting his authority as a parent. Notably, around these parts, it is possible for a well-seasoned man to use his position of power and authority in foisting himself upon a thirteen year-old without committing “rape-rape”. In the final analysis, it is not my position to judge Oriental child-rearing techniques. All I am after is just amends for offenses visited upon me by the Zhus and their entourage.
Q: But why do you bring in Blixa Bargeld? We don’t care that his art is funded by Erin’s blood money. We just want to listen to his music, which only she made possible.
A: You are as free to listen to anything you want, as Bargeld is, to produce it to your liking. This is my performance. Unlike Erin and her consort, I am not reaching into anyone else’s pocket to fund it. If they had wanted to keep their funding private, they shouldn’t have involved my family and friends in it. As Immanuel Kant quipped: “All actions relating to the right of other human beings are wrong if their maxim is incompatible with publicity.”
Q: Wasn’t your lawsuit was settled to your satisfaction? If so, why do you carry on your vindictive crusade?
A: I never settled any claims against Min Zhu, Susan Xu, or WebEx. Aside from that, American courts are loath to deal in moral satisfaction. The individuals who betrayed my trust and made terrorist threats against me and my family have an outstanding opportunity to perform an act of contrition. Unless and until that contrition takes place, I am determined to shame them by all legitimate means at my disposal.
Q: But why not let it go, relax, and be free?
A: I am free here and now. Standing up to the powers that be is what got me here in the first instance, so the rest of my life must warrant that choice one way or another. As another alumnus of my alma mater put it, “there is some shit I will not eat”. In game-theoretic terms, players with pure strategies can be hawks always fighting to prevail over their opponents, at the risk of suffering injury to themselves, or doves merely displaying their colors but never engaging in real fights. Neither strategy is optimal, because hawks tend to suffer more damage than necessary, whereas doves tend to forgo too much of the available resources to more aggressive competitors. But a mixed strategy can trump hawks and doves alike. One such strategy is that of a bourgeois making like a hawk with respect to any contest in which he is the owner, and making like a dove with respect to any contest in which he is the intruder. A bourgeois population cannot be invaded by hawks or doves because its members avoid more damaging encounters than the pure hawks and win more lucrative encounters than pure doves. As an anarchist, I have little sympathy for bourgeois values. But I have no trouble making like the owner of my life against any intruder who would pose a credible threat to it. That is the kind of shit I will not eat.
Q: Don’t you have anything better to do with your life than fomenting this negativity?
A: I understand my opportunity costs and actual prospects, and plan my actions accordingly. In my thesis, I argued against John Rawls postulating a linear scale of primary human goods. I believe that human preferences cannot be so ordered. This lack can be illustrated by comparing three principal causes of quarrel that Hobbes found in the nature of man: first, competition; secondly, diffidence; thirdly, glory. As Hobbes observes: “The first maketh men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third, for reputation.” There is no reason to assume, and no ground to conclude, that gain, safety, and reputation can be served simultaneously, to the same extent. On the contrary, wealth and fame go hand in hand with exposure to the assaults and depredations of the envious, whereas a primary concern for safety debars the timid from taking risks required for attaining wealth and fame. In turn, servility of the greedy often parts ways with flattery of the vain, as the currency prized on Wall Street differs from the kudos sought in Hollywood. The existence and nature of these differences can be shown with the greatest clarity by interrogating vital preferences under extreme circumstances. When I told my thesis examiners of my confidence in empirical confirmation, they challenged me by pointing out that effective experiments in vital human preferences under extreme circumstances would be debarred by ethical considerations. So here I am handed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity pose an exclusive choice between mutually incompatible goods of greed and vanity to eminently deserving experimental subjects. What’s not to like?
Q: How can you stage your public protests on private property?
My associates and I exercise a right to free expression on private property readily accessible to general public, pursuant to the rulings in Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980) and progeny. It is our belief that the strip of private property directly in front of the main entrances to the sites of our protests falls within the purview of Pruneyard in virtue of housing several unrelated businesses and being readily accessible to the general public. My associates and I are pledged to abide by all applicable laws. Our prior events since May of 2005 were unmarked by any disturbances, and we hope that the same will be the case in all future jurisdictions. We intend to enforce our right to free expression to the full extent of the law, against any illegal infringement. We do not interfere in any way with the operation of the businesses located at the sites of our protests, or any of their employees, associates, or visitors, including, but not limited to, their intended subjects. Concerned parties may address their communications to my lawyer David W. Affeld, 12400 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1180, Los Angeles CA 90025, phone: (310) 979-8700, fax: (310) 979-8701. I may be reached at 7576 Willow Glen Road, Los Angeles, CA 90046, phone: (323) 363-1860.
Q: But why do you carry a gun while protesting?
A: Because I am protesting death threats against me and my family. And because I can. “You can get further with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word.”
Q: Your armed protests may result in legal repercussions against other gun owners. How can you put your own interest in futile tilting at windmills above the common good?
A: That is not how I see it. I am putting my Constitutional rights ahead of other people’s wishes. This sort of arrangement is implicit in the very nature of rights and wishes. Contrariwise, I would never put my wishes ahead of other people’s rights. Men need no special justification to look out for their interests within the bounds of their rights. I never claimed to speak on anyone else’s behalf or dictate anyone else’s course of action. I will not suffer anyone debarring me from lawful conduct, directing my personal efficiency, or posing as my spokesman for the common good. My public performance has caused a child rapist to get fired from the company that he founded and flee the United States. I claim that this alone makes my country a better place.
Q: Is the exercise of Constitutional rights just about you? Isn’t it about us?
A: This is a catchy Communist slogan. I am also a communist, of the Platonic variety. The day science discovers a formula for calculating the immanent value of labor, is the day I shall endorse the revival of Gosplan, expropriation of the expropriators, and submission of every individual will to the common good. Till then I shall persevere in my naive loyalty to our Constitution and grudging deference to the despotism of marginal utility.
Q: We cannot find any media coverage of your alleged exploits. Why should we believe you?
A: The press sucks up to wealth and power. But the facts speak for themselves. Stephanie Downs, scheduled to speak at the 2005 WebEx User Conference in San Francisco, has reported its cancellation in response to my protest. Look here for WebEx’s SEC filing of Min Zhu’s resignation, dated 16 May 2005. You can connect the dots.
Q: Aren’t you taking your grudge too far?
A: I reserve the right to be the sole judge of how far to take my grudges within the bounds of law.
Q: Even if you have that right, this is not a matter of life or death, is it? Or are you claiming to be in fear of your life?
A: My father was killed by an apartment fire that appears to have started in several places. But that evidence is inconclusive. I wish it were dispositive one way or another. Unfortunately, that is not the case. As for the threats against me and my family made in the names and on the behalves of Min Zhu and WebEx, I cannot think of any moral inhibitions that might hamper the man capable of serially raping his fourteen-year-old daughter. If Min thinks that he can get away with any wrongdoing in the furtherance of his will, nothing will hold him back.
Q: So what do you stand to gain by your protests?
A: A heartfelt apology from each of my offenders, delivered before a judge.
Q: What if they refuse to apologize?
A: Shame is a powerful tool. The law affords me no lack of venues for shaming my adversaries into performing a genuine act of contrition. Expect to hear my name in the dying breath of each of them that fails to do so.
Q: You are a whiny assclown. Why bother with all this verbiage?
A: Even whiny assclowns have their rights. You should be grateful to me for not allowing them to wither away.
Tags: anarchism, webex
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11:59 am
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r.i.p., c. l.-s.
De la constellation initiale du poème, formée par les amoureux et les savants, les chats permettent, par leur médiation, d’éliminer la femme, laissant face à face—sinon même confondus—“le poète des Chats”, libéré de l’amour “bien restreint”, et l’univers, délivré de l’austérité du savant.
The cats, by their mediation, permit the removal of woman from the initial assemblage formed by lovers and scholars. The poet of “Les Chats,” liberated from love “bien petit, bien restreint,” meets face to face and perhaps even blends with the universe, delivered from the scholar’s austerity.
—Roman Jakobson, Claude Lévi-Strauss, “« Les Chats » de Charles Baudelaire”, L’Homme, 1962, Volume 2, Issue 1, pp. 5-21, at p. 21
Tags: baudelaire, death, french, language, philosophy
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01:10 am
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integrity and blame
Howard M. Kaminsky of 6130 Ridge Lane, Ocean Ridge, Florida 33435 writes in a letter to the TLS regarding Bernard Wasserstein’s Commentary on Hannah Arendt:As for his charges relating to Arendt’s use of Nazi authors and her inadequate love of the Jewish people, I admit, Jew that I am, to believing that some Nazi authors had important things to say not unrelated to their Nazism, above all the viciously anti-Semitic but incomparably brilliant Carl Schmitt (whom Arendt used even more than she says), and I also believe that Jews have created gentile hostility by demanding equal rights but refusing to surrender their ethnic integrity. Books have been written about this by a number of authors who are not overtly anti-Semitic—e.g. Kevin MacDonald and Albert Lindemann—and Arendt’s analysis of Jewish “responsibility” for anti-Semitism can hardly be dismissed as due to her “perverse world-view”, let alone her “combination of ira et studio [sic]”. Setting aside the insinuation of covert anti-Semitism, the notion of the Jews having created gentile hostility by demanding equal rights but refusing to surrender their ethnic integrity is baffling. Is it likewise possible to blame women for having created male hostility by demanding equal rights but refusing to surrender their sexual integrity? For that matter, is it possible to blame any man for having elicited the hostility of his peers by demanding equal rights but refusing to surrender his personal integrity? If the claim is that ethnic descent or religious confession are somehow unlike biological sex and personal identity in their moral implications, why is that the case, and how so?
Tags: jews, persiflage, philosophy, sex, usenet
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09:43 pm
[Link] |
susan xu, stanford mom
WANTED: SUSAN XU
 CHILD RAPE TOOL
WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOUR HUSBAND
BRUTALLY RAPED YOUR DAUGHTER?
[ ] REPORT HIM TO THE POLICE
[ ] REFER HIM TO A PSYCHIATRIST
[ ] WALK OUT AND NEVER SEE HIM AGAIN
[ ] PRETEND THAT NOTHING HAPPENED
[ ] TALK HER INTO ACCEPTING HIS RAPE
[ ] PAY HER A FORTUNE IN HUSH MONEY
CHECK ALL THAT APPLY
tool, n. “A person used by another for his own ends; one who is, or allows himself to be, made a mere instrument for some purpose; a cat’s-paw.” (The Oxford English Dictionary)
She shouldered the responsibilities of bringing up her children and supporting her husband Min Zhu to study in the top university of The United States—Stanford University in early 80s; and in 90s, she and her husband founded WebEx in Silicon Valley and successful made it come into the market in the Nasdaq.The company was purchased by the world’s giant—Cisco in 3.2 billion dollars in 2007, and she is a veritable “Female President of Silicon Valley.” She trained her son Lei Zhu who was sent to the young class in Tsinghua University without examination when he was 14-year-old, and then Lei Zhu was admitted to the trump department of Stanford University—Computer Department when he was 15-year-old and became the youngest student ever. She also sent her daughter and daughter-in-law to Stanford Business School. Her family members are all Stanford students, and she became a well-deserved “Stanford Mom.”
Thus Susan Yuqing Xu advertises herself to the families of prospective students of her Dwight International School. Her real story is somewhat different. Thus writes her daughter Erin Zhu:
Crossing the busy streets of Hong Kong the other day, my mother held on to my hand, a gesture that reversed roles we’d played so long ago. She trusts me, her estranged and prodigal daughter, to guide her safely around the reckless vehicles, I think to myself, and am strangely touched by the thought. I had never been particularly close to my mother; growing up she had always openly favored my brother, and had little patience or affection for me. It was only after I’d left home and became a grown woman that she started making overtures of friendship. To think that we had to come half a world away to renew the tenuous ties of blood between us…
It surprises me still, how much I want her to at least accept me and approve of what I do, even after all these years when I told myself that I did not care.
She and I sat in the dark watching the glittering Hong Kong skyline, and spoke of our disparate rememberances of the past. Left unspoken between us was the fact that neither of us could think of any happy memories of my childhood. She told stories of me as a baby; I told her small pieces of triumph from my more recent past; the long years that stretched between age three through sixteen went untouched, bypassed with a shake of the head and mutterings of “there were historical reasons”…
— Erin Zhu to Blixa Bargeld, 25 Nov 99 20:14:42 PST
the summer when I was fourteen, my father suddenly changed his tune when my mother left for an extended visit to China. he took off my clothes, praised my naked form held up to a bathroom mirror, and devoured my body with his lust.
I wanted to die; I tried to kill. I did not succeed in either.
— Erin Zhu to Blixa Bargeld, 27 Dec 99 13:40:45 PST
According to Erin Zhu’s complaint for childhood sexual abuse, which can be seen in Santa Clara Superior Court in case number CV-809286, throughout July of 1988, when her mother Susan Xu went back to China for eye treatment, her father came to her bedroom and raped her. At the time of Erin’s sexual assault by her father, her brother Lei Zhu, a Stanford sophomore, remained in his bedroom next door and heard her struggle and cry out, but did nothing. After Erin ran away from her family home in December of 1989, and made a police report complaining about sexual abuse and beatings by Min Zhu, the police placed her in a foster home in San Mateo. Min Zhu and Susan Xu then persuaded Erin to drop her criminal charges against her father and to come back home. As an incentive for her to comply with their request, her parents pledged to cease their old family ways. However, Min Zhu resumed physical and verbal abuse of his family members shortly thereafter. According to Erin, her mother Susan Xu knew about her rape and beatings by Min Zhu but did nothing to protect her. According to Erin, a year later Lei Zhu propositioned her while they shared a hotel room during a trip to San Diego. After Erin turned down her brother’s sexual advances, Lei pointed his penis towards her and masturbated in her plain view.
Instead of walking out on her Stanford-educated, child-molesting husband, Susan went in business with Min. Their startup, WebEx Communications, entered in a joint venture with a company owned by their daughter jointly with Michael Zeleny. When WebEx reneged on its contractual duties, Erin chose the career path of a professional victim by making a belated claim for childhood sexual abuse against her parents. Min and Susan paid off their daughter under the table in order to circumvent her 2.5% contingency fee arrangement with her lawyer, David W. Affeld. Affeld had to sue the Zhus to recover his fee. For his part, Zeleny attempted to settle their dispute by contacting its CEO Subrah Iyar. At that time, Min acted as its President and CTO, wile Susan was its Chief of Operations. WebEx’s next operation comprised death threats made against Zeleny. These threats echoed the language that Min Zhu had used to elicit sexual submission of his fourteen year-old daughter. As a result of the ensuing publicity, Min Zhu left his company and fled the United States. WebEx’s related operation, aimed at judicial silencing of Zeleny, ended in its paying his attorney’s fees and dropping its libel claims.
In addition to running Dwight International School in Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, Canada, Min Zhu and Susan Xu are operating middle and high schools under the auspices of Valley International Academy in Sunnyvale and Atherton, California. Now that their Stanford-branded offspring has flown the coop, Min and Susan have plenty of nubile flesh at hand to lavish their charitable urges.
Susan Xu is a veritable “Female President of Silicon Valley” and a well-deserved “Stanford Mom”. Think twice before putting your kids in her care.
CHILD RAPISTS AND THEIR ENABLERS
HAVE NO PLACE IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS
Tags: degenerates, sex, webex
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11:20 am
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hannah arendt’s wrinkled cunt rides again
 ( Read more... ) “…the true path to uber trolling lies in the careful study of Mikhail Zeleny.
His 1993 masterpiece, Hannah Arendt’s Wrinkled Cunt, was a milestone. Truly a Russian-American icon!”
—posted by cr8dle2grave on Fri Oct 06, 2006 at 02:52:27 PM EST
Tags: persiflage, philosophy, sex, usenet
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12:52 pm
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assclowns and technocrats
Open Carry and Personal Agenda
My name is Michael Zeleny. I am standing in the courtyard of New Enterprise Associates, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. I have a 6" S&W Registered Magnum at my right side and three speedloaders in my left pocket. This is my story.
My company did business with the Zhu family and their ventures since before their founding of WebEx Communications, an online conferencing company. NEA funded WebEx, which was eventually acquired by Cisco. Min Zhu, the founder of WebEx, remains listed on the NEA roster as a "Senior Venture Advisor". In 2001, after WebEx breached its obligations to my company, I asked their CEO Subrah Iyar to set matters right. In response, I received anonymous death threats in in the names and on the behalves of Min Zhu and WebEx. The language of these threats echoed the terms with which Min Zhu had indimidated his fourteen-year-old daughter Erin into yielding to his sexual advances thirteen years earlier. After I filed my lawsuit, the Zhus' lawyer, who had previously represented the parents against their daughter's claim for childhood sexual abuse, threatened me with the destruction of people's lives. Three years later, my father Isaak, plaintiff in a related lawsuit, was killed by an apartment fire. I hired a retired LAFD captain to investigate the cause and origins of this fire. He told me that it appears to have started in several places.
On May Day of 2005 I went public with my story at the WebEx User Conference in San Francisco. In response, WebEx shut down its conference and announced Min Zhu's retirement and departure for China. Several months later, NEA's General Partner Scott Sandell funded Min Zhu's new business in his homeland. That is what I am protesting today. You can find the details in my blog.
I have read your responses to my performance. I am amused and delighted by their range and tenor. I am unconcerned about being hit with a dead fish or a slab of bacon. I have been hit with worse. What concerns me is some of you claiming that my actions are causing damage to our cause. I claim a common cause of protecting my Constitutional rights. I also claim a personal interest in protecting myself and my family against unlawful threats. Since when do legitimate defensive actions taken in the furtherance of an individual interest stand at odds with the common Constitutional cause?
__________________
cordially, -- Michael Zeleny@post.harvard.edu
7576 Willow Glen Road, Los Angeles, CA 90046 -- 323.363.1860 -- http://larvatus.livejournal.com/
All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. -- Samuel Beckett
Tags: anarchism, webex
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11:34 pm
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short shameful confession
I like my kike kayak.∗,†,‡
 ( Footnotes: )
Tags: cars, jews, language, love, poetry
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02:49 am
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best of craigslist redux
Tags: anarchism, degenerates, webex
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02:38 pm
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how to write good
How to Write Good
Michael
O’Donoghue
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“If I could not earn a penny from my writing, I would earn my livelihood at something else and continue to write at night.”
—Irving Wallace |
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“Financial success is not the only reward of good writing. It brings to the writer rich inner satisfaction as well.”
—Elliot Foster, Director of Admissions, Famous Writers School |
( Read more... )
Tags: humor, writing
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03:36 pm
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продукт элитарного взращивания
aptsvet:
Любой реальный язык есть продукт “порчи”, а не элитарного взращивания.
larvatus:
Французский язык является продуктом элитарного взращивания со времён кардинала Ришелье. И если можно поиздеваться над тщетными потугами вытеснения англицизмов типа email и software туземными новообразованиями типа courriel и logiciel, несомненно, что литературный модернизм от Бодлера до Бекетта обязан своим существованием именно этому академическому аскетизму.
aptsvet:
В каком-то смысле верно и заслуживает особого внимания. Тем не менее, не мне одному кажется, что французская модель надзора за языком не идеальна. Русская, кстати, с нее во многом скопирована.
larvatus:
Ежели верно и заслуживает внимания, зачем тогда стулья ломать?
aptsvet:
Во-первых, в силу иных убеждений. Во-вторых, там тоже не так просто, многие нынешние авторы прилагают все усилия, чтобы не скатиться в язык Расина.
larvatus:
И первое и второе понятно и оправдано. Но всё же, Ваше заявление, что любой реальный язык есть продукт “порчи”, а не элитарного взращивания, полностью опровергается вышеуказанным исключением.
aptsvet:
О, я могу привести контрпримеры еще лучше—эсперанто, например, не говоря уже о строго формализованных языках программирования. Литературному французскому до этих эталонов далеко. Но я все же берусь предсказать, что узус победит норму и во французском, а польза его контролируемой эволюции для меня неочевидна.
larvatus:
Контрпример эсперанто, не говоря уже о строго формализованных языках программирования, в контексте разговора о реальных языках проходит под рубрикой лёгкого издевательства, если не злостной софистики. Я не спорю с Вашими предсказаниями победы лингвистического народничества и восприятиями неочевидности пользы контролируемой эволюции. Меня удивляет лишь кульминация Вашей полемики заведомо ложным утверждением.
aptsvet:
Лучше все же взглянуть в начало, в исходный пост. Ситуация в эпоху классической латыни, особенно серебряной, была во многом сходна с нынешней французской. Индукция имеет свои минусы, но лучше инструмента у нас нет.
larvatus:
Самый лучший инструмент—это правда. Индукции здесь не стояло. В противном случае, мы бы всё ещё существовали в пещерах.
aptsvet:
Пещеры тут ни при чем. Мне кажется, вы путаете мою неприязнь к лексической регламентации с отрицанием речевого этикета, на который я ни в коем случае не посягаю—наоборот, постоянно сетую на его кризис в сегодняшнем русском языке. Тем не менее, к грамматическому роду кофе он никакого отношения не имеет.
larvatus:
Я пишу не про отрицание речевого этикета, и тем более не про грамматический род слова кофе, а про вполне реальный язык, являющийся продуктом “элитарного взращивания”.
Tags: baudelaire, beckett, french, language, mallarmé, russian, truth
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02:15 pm
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благотворительно
Догола разоблачась,
Выдрочив сию новинку,
Быков фыркает, но Глинку
Затоптать не может в грязь.
Tags: doggerel, jews, russian, russians, stupidity
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06:14 am
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parenting, indian style
Let us connect the dots. Min Zhu, Subrah Iyar’s partner in the founding of WebEx, raped his daughter Erin when she was 14 years old. Fourteen years later, Subrah went on court record denying Min’s sexual abuse of Erin and squandering WebEx shareholders’ assets in a futile attempt to cover up his partner’s incestuous rape. Which brings us to the question: How much “better” is Subrah getting to know his daughters? |
Marriage among the Kallans is said to depend entirely upon consanguinity. The most proper alliance is one between a man and the daughter of his father’s sister; and, if an individual has such a cousin, he must marry her, whatever disparity there may be between their respective ages. A boy, for example, of fifteen must marry such a cousin, even if she be thirty or forty years old, if her father insists upon his so doing. Failing a cousin of this sort, he must marry his aunt or his niece, or some near relative. If his father’s brother has a daughter, and insists upon his marrying her, he cannot refuse: and this whatever may be the woman’s age.
—Edgar Thurston, Ethnographic Notes in Southern India, Madras: Government Press, 1906, p. 53; also see Sir James George Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament: Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend and Law, Vol. II, Macmillan and Co., 1919, p. 105, and Claude Lévi-Strauss, The Elementary Structures of Kinship, Beacon Press, 1971, p. 428, a translation of Les structures élémentaires de la parenté, La Haye, Mouton et Co., 1967.
The rhetoric of sex with family members also appears in many later tantras such as the Guhyasamāja and Cakrasamvara Tantras. In its fifth chapter, the Guhyasamāja Tantra states that the adept who has sex with his mother, sister, or daughter can attain great success. In its thirty-third chapter, the Cakrasamvara Tantra describes sexual yogic practices to be undertaken with a consort and promises that if readers undertake these, even with female relatives, they will be liberated.
—Yudit Kornberg Greenberg, editor, Encyclopedia of Love in World Religions, ABC-CLIO, 2007, Volume 1, pp. 317-318.
Childhood in much of India begins with the young child being regularly masturbated by the mother, “high caste or low caste, the girl ‘to make her sleep well,’ the boy ‘to make him manly…’” This practice has been said to be widespread by many reliable observers, including Catherine Mayo—whose extensive investigations in India in the 1920s led to the first child marriage laws—a physician, an ethnologist, a religious scholar and a sociologist. As is the case with virtually all non-Western cultures, the child sleeps in the family bed for several years and regularly observes sexual intercourse between the parents. The extent to which Indian parents go beyond this and overtly have sex with the child cannot be determined. Rampal, the sociologist who recently did interviews modeled on the Kinsey studies about contemporary Indian sexual practices, concludes that “there is a lot of incest… It is hidden along with other secrets of families and rarely gets a chance to come out, like seduction at the hands of trusted friends of the family… To arrive at even a passable estimate of incest cases would be to touch the hornet’s nest… no one will ever confess to such a deed, therefore, any attempt to collect statistics may prove to be futile at present.”
Boys as well as girls are reported as being masturbated and raped by the men in the family, including fathers, older brothers, uncles and cousins. By the time children are four or five, they are usually taken to bed at night by others in the extended household. “A particular uncle may like her to sleep in his room, which is considered a great gesture of closeness.” As one girl describes it: “I hardly ever slept with my parents after I was four. I rotated almost every night between my various uncles and sometimes my grandmother. But it was difficult to have any space in her bed because all the grandsons slept in her bed… So I preferred to sleep in [uncle’s] bed, who was very nice and put his arms around me in winter.” This practice is similar to the customary sharing of their wives by brothers, who have free sexual access to each other’s wives, an ancient practice still approved of in some areas in India.
So acceptable is sex between close relatives in India that uncle-niece and cross-cousin marriages were preferred among certain Indian groups. As the old Indian proverb has it, “For a girl to be a virgin at ten years old, she must have neither brothers nor cousin nor father.” These sleeping patterns with relatives who live in common residences continue even after marriage, since husbands are often cold to wives, and sex with the husband’s younger brother is covertly encouraged by the family to give the wife someone to be “close” to. Grandfathers often call the little girls “my little wife,” give them candy and “play the role of an old seducer,” teasing them by saying “Don’t you want to marry me?” One observer stuns up traditional Indian sexual stimulation during childhood as follows: “The little Hindu girls are deflowered by the little boys with whom they play, and repeat together the erotic lessons which their parents have unwittingly taught them on account of the general promiscuity of family life throughout India. In all the little girls of less than ten years of age the complete hymen is wanting… Incest is often the rule rather than the exception.”
—Lloyd DeMause, “The Universality of Incest”, The Journal of Psychohistory, Fall 1991, Vol. 19, No. 2, footnotes omitted.
Close-knit family life in India masks an alarming amount of sexual abuse of children and teenage girls by family members, a new report suggests.
Delhi organisation RAHI said 76% of respondents to its survey had been abused when they were children—40% of those by a family member.
The report suggests that disbelief, denial and cover-up to preserve the family reputation is often put before the individual child.
—Daniel Lak, “India’s Hidden Incest”, BBC News, 22 January 1999.
[Subrah Iyar]’s family has grown through the years and the addition of his two daughters is one of the most treasured things in Iyar’s life. With 14-year-old Leena, who has a personality more like him and wants to be a lawyer, and 12-year-old Nikhita, who is more like her mother, yet wants to be a corporate leader just like her father, Iyar isn’t wasting any time getting to know his daughters better now that his workflow has leveled off. His children are only now starting to realize that their father is an important businessman with a great deal of responsibility.
—Diana Rohini LaVigne, “Subrah Iyar’s WebEx-ceptional Success: Capturing the Power of the Internet”, indianlifeandstyle.com. |
Tags: degenerates, gainsbourg, sex, webex
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01:22 am
[Link] |
party chatter
—What do you do?
—I elicit apologies.
—How so?
—I come to men who owe an apology and inspire them to make it.
—What are you then, a lawyer?
—Not as an officer of the court.
—An officer of what then?
—I answer to a higher authority.
—What is that?
—Whatever witnesses men coming short of the mark.
—So you are an apologist.
—An apologist makes apologies. Vocationally, I am an apologer.
—So how do you go about it?
—By reminding people of the right thing to do.
—And there is money in that?
—There can be. The stakes are high one way or another.
—But why do it when there is no payback?
—Causing the right thing to get done is a charity for my clients.
—What happens if your clients decline to do the right thing?
—I make them sorry.
—How?
—Like this.
Tags: degenerates, failure, webex
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01:53 am
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sig p210 prices
The P210 has been out of production since December of 2005. According to Fjestad’s 2004 Blue Book of Gun Values, the last MSRP at that time was $2,695.00 for the P210-6 and $3,031.00 for the extended barrel P210-5, with a $124.00 premium charged for the P210-6S and P210-5S versions with a lateral magazine release. The top of the line, polished P210-1 cost $1,861.00 in 2002, whereas the basic sandblasted P210-2 model cost $1,680.00. According to the Swiss price list of 1986 reproduced by Armbruster, at the time one could buy a P210-1 for 2,620.00 CHf, a P210-2 for 1,765.00 and a 65.00 CHf surcharge for wood stocks, a P210-5 for 2,600.00 CHf likewise, a P210-6 for 1,895.00 CHf likewise, with a 10.00 CHf or a 245.00 CHf surcharge for a contrast or a micrometer sight, and a P210-L for 5,920.00 CHf to 9,345.00 CHf, depending on the engraving pattern and stock carving. The Swiss Frank exchange rate ranged between 1.66 and 2.00 CHf per dollar in 1986. As of today, it is about 1.02 CHf per dollar.
The current availability of spare parts for the P210 in Europe is as follows. Swiss Arms stocks centerfire magazines, plastic Hi-Grips and checkered walnut stocks, and a full complement of sights and accessories therefor. Additionally, Wyss has trigger springs, 120mm barrels in 9mm Para, and aftermarket micrometer rear sights made by Swiss gunsmith Stefan Dobler and recently approved for use in the Swiss service pistol competitions, whereas Lagardere has 120mm barrels in 7.65 Para and 9x21 IMI, 150mm barrel assemblies in 9 Para, factory pattern walnut stocks, and magazines for .22 l.r. conversion kits. These parts are very costly at the moment. For example, Swiss Arms and their authorized dealers in Switzerland offer the OEM micrometer rear sight for 380.00 CHf, or around $375.00 according to the current exchange rate, whereas the asking price for the LPA and Dobler sights in Germany is 128.00 Euros or around $191.00. A few years back new old stock 120mm P210 barrels sold online for around $200.00 apiece, or $350.00 for the 150mm barrel assembly with a Patridge front sight mounted in a removable carrier. Today, fair prices for the same parts are upwards of $800.00 and $1,300.00, respectively. While retail prices are lower in Europe, the costs of importing a single part regulated by European law and ATF import division alike are prohibitive. All inbound foreign gun parts shipments containing rifled barrels and/or valued at over $100.00 are subject to import licensing by the BATF. In my experience, these regulations are enforced vigorously but fairly. Violate them not only at your own risk, but to the common detriment of your fellow enthusiasts. A litany of import and export licenses, shipping, and duty along with a summary of my importing experience, linked to relevant online resources, is posted here. The correct English, French, and German designations of SIG P210 parts can be found here, accompanied by my notes on their fit, function, and variations.
Tags: guns, p210
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09:43 pm
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comment on paie ses dettes quand on a du génie
Les feuilles mortes
paroles : Jacques Prévert ; musique : Joseph Kosma
Oh! je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes
des jours heureux où nous étions amis
En ce temps-là la vie était plus belle
et le soleil plus brûlant qu’aujourd’hui
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle…
Tu vois je n’ai pas oublié
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle
les souvenirs et les regrets aussi
et le vent du nord les emporte
dans la nuit froide de l’oubli
Tu vois je n’ai pas oublié
la chanson que tu me chantais
C’est une chanson qui nous ressemble
Toi tu m’aimais
et je t’aimais
Et nous vivions tous deux ensemble
toi qui m’aimais
et que j’aimais
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s’aiment
tout doucement
sans faire de bruit
et la mer efface sur le sable
les pas des amants désunis
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle
les souvenirs et les regrets aussi
Mais mon amour silencieux et fidèle
sourit toujours et remercie la vie
Je t’aimais tant tu étais si jolie
Comment veux-tu que je t’oublie
En ce temps-là la vie était plus belle
et le soleil plus brûlant qu’aujourd’hui
Tu étais ma plus douce amie…
Mais je n’ai que faire des regrets
Et la chanson que tu chantais
toujours toujours je l’entendrai
C’est une chanson qui nous ressemble
Toi tu m’aimais
et je t’aimais
Et nous vivions tous deux ensemble
toi qui m’aimais
et que j’aimais
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s’aiment
tout doucement
sans faire de bruit
et la mer efface sur le sable
les pas des amants désunis.
1950
—Jacques Prévert, Œuvres complètes, tome II, Gallimard, 1996, pp. 785-786 |
La chanson de Prévert
paroles et musique : Serge Gainsbourg
Oh je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes
Cette chanson était la tienne
C’était ta préférée
Je crois
Qu’elle est de Prévert et
Kosma
Avec d’autres bien sûr je m’abandonne
Mais leur chanson est monotone
Et peu à peu je m’in-
Diffère
À cela il n’est rien
À faire
Peut on jamais savoir par où commence
Et quand finit l’indifférence
Passe l’automne vienne
L’hiver
Et que la chanson de
Prévert
Cette chanson LES FEUILLES MORTES
S’efface de mon souvenir
Et ce jour-là
Mes amours mortes
En auront fini de mourir
1958
—Serge Gainsbourg, Mon propre rôle I, Denoël, 1987, 1991, pp. 56-57
Gréco avait chanté « Les feuilles mortes » ; Gainsbourg compose « La chanson de Prévert ». Il a l’intention de frapper un grand coup, mais se fait tout petit quand il s’agit d’aller demander à Jacques Prévert l’autorisation d’utiliser son nom.
GAINSBOURG : « Il m’avait reçu chez lui. À dix heures du matin, il attaquait au champagne. Il m’a dit : “Mais c’est très bien mon p’tit gars !” et timidement je lui ai tendu un papier qu’il m’a signé. »
—Gilles Verlant, Gainsbourg, Editions Albin Michel, 1992, p. 55 |
Jacques Prévert est un conJacques Prévert est quelqu’un dont on apprend des poèmes à l’ecole. Il en ressort qu’il aimait les fleurs, les oiseaux, les quartiers du vieux Paris, etc. L’amour lui paraissait s’épanouir dans une ambiance de liberté ; plus généralement, il était plutôt pour la liberté. Il portait une casquette et fumait des Gauloises ; on le confond parfois avec Jean Gabin ; d’ailleurs c’est lui qui a écrit le scénario de Quai des brumes, des Portes de la nuit, etc. Il a aussi écrit le scénario des Enfants du paradis, considéré comme son chef d’œuvre. Tout cela fait beaucoup de bonnes raisons pour détester Jacques Prévert ; surtout si on lit les scénarios jamais tournes qu’Antonin Artaud écrivait à la même époque. Il est affligeant de constater que ce répugnant réalisme poétique, dont Prévert fut l’artisan principal, continue à faire des ravages, et qu’on pense faire un compliment à Leos Carax en l’y rattachant (de la même manière Rohmer serait sans doute un nouveau Guitry, etc.) Le cinéma français ne s’est en fait jamais relève de l’avènement du parlant ; il finira par en crever, et ce n’est pas plus mal.
Après-guerre, à peu près à la même époque que Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Prévert a eu un succès énorme ; on est malgré soi frappé par l’optimisme de cette génération. Aujourd’hui, le penseur le plus influent, ce serait plutôt Cioran. À l’époque on écoutait Vian, Brassens… Amoureux qui se bécotent sur les bancs publics, baby-boom, construction massive de HLM pour loger tout ce monde-là. Beaucoup d’optimisme, de foi en l’avenir, et un peu de connerie. À l’évidence, nous sommes devenus beaucoup plus intelligents.
Avec les intellectuels, Prévert a eu moins de chance. Ses poèmes regorgent pourtant de ces jeux de mots stupides qui plaisent tellement chez Bobby Lapointe ; mais il est vrai que la chanson est comme on dit un genre mineur, et que l’intellectuel, lui aussi, doit se détendre. Quand on aborde le texte écrit, son vrai gagne-pain, il devient impitoyable. Et le « travail du texte », chez Prévert, reste embryonnaire : il écrit avec limpidité et un vrai naturel, parfois même avec émotion ; il ne s’intéresse ni à l’écriture, ni à l’impossibilité d’écrire ; sa grande source d’inspiration, ce serait plutôt la vie. Il a donc, pour l’essentiel, échappe aux thèses de troisième cycle. Aujourd’hui cependant il rentre à la Pléiade, ce qui constitue une seconde mort. Son œuvre est la, complète et figée. C’est une excellente occasion de s’interroger: pourquoi la poésie de Jacques Prévert est-elle si médiocre, à tel point qu’on éprouve parfois une sorte de honte à la lire? L’explication classique (parce que son écriture « manque de rigueur ») est tout à fait fausse ; à travers ses jeux de mots, son rythme léger et limpide, Prévert exprime en réalité parfaitement sa conception du monde. La forme est cohérente avec le fond, ce qui est bien le maximum qu’on puisse exiger d’une forme. D’ailleurs quand un poète s’immerge à ce point dans la vie, dans la vie réelle de son époque, ce serait lui faire injure que de le juger suivant des critères purement stylistiques. Si Prévert écrit, c’est qu’il a quelque chose à dire ; c’est tout à son honneur. Malheureusement, ce qu’il a à dire est d’une stupidité sans bornes ; on en a parfois la nausée. Il y a de jolies filles nues, des bourgeois qui saignent comme des cochons quand on les égorge. Les enfants sont d’une immoralité sympathique, les voyous sont séduisants et virils, les jolies filles nues donnent leur corps aux voyous ; les bourgeois sont vieux, obèses, impuissants, décores de légion d’honneur et leurs femmes sont frigides ; les curés sont de répugnantes vieilles chenilles qui ont inventé le péché pour nous empêcher de vivre. On connaît tout cela ; on peut préférer Baudelaire. Ou même Karl Marx, qui, au moins, ne se trompe pas de cible lorsqu’il écrit que « le triomphe de la bourgeoisie a noyé les frissons sacrés de l’extase religieuse, d l’enthousiasme chevaleresque et de la sentimentalité quatre sous dans les eaux glacées du calcul égoïste ». (La lutte des classes en France. [Mais non, il s’agit plutôt du Manifeste du parti communiste. —MZ]) L’intelligence n’aide en rien à écrire de bons poèmes ; elle peut cependant éviter d’en écrire de mauvais. Si Jacques Prévert est un mauvais poète c’est avant tout parce que sa vision du monde est plate, superficielle et fausse. Elle était déjà fausse de son temps ; aujourd’hui sa nullité apparaît avec éclat, à tel point que l’œuvre entière semble le développement d’un gigantesque cliché. Sur le plan philosophique et politique, Jacques Prévert est avant tout un libertaire ; c’est-à-dire, fondamentalement, un imbécile.
Les « eaux glacées du calcul égoïste », nous y barbotons maintenant depuis notre plus tendre enfance. Or peut s’en accommoder, essayer d’y survivre ; on peut aussi se laisser couler. Mais ce qu’il est impossible d’imaginer, c’est que la libération des puissances du désir soit à elle seule susceptible d’amener un réchauffement. L’anecdote veut que ce soit Robespierre qui ait insisté pour ajouter le mot « fraternité » à la devise de la République ; nous sommes aujourd’hui en mesure d’apprécier pleinement cette anecdote. Prévert se voyait certainement comme un partisan de la fraternité ; mais Robespierre n’était pas, loin de là, un adversaire de la vertu.
— Michel Houellebecq, “Jacques Prévert est un con” in Interventions, Flammarion, 1998, pp. 9-14 Cet article est paru dans le numéro 22 (juillet 1992) des Lettres françaises. Tags: bullshit, french, gainsbourg, houellebecq, jews, love, music
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