Snicker & Snort

Dear Paula & Colleagues Across the Curriculum 

As Wittgenstein says,
 
   “This is how philosophers
    should salute each other:
 
      ‘Take your time.’ ”
 
Because of their laughable
otherworldliness and lack of
respect for social convention,
rank and privilege, philosophers
refuse to honor the old gods and
this makes them politically
suspicious, even dangerous.
 
Might such dismal things
still  happen in our happily
enlightened  age?
 
That depends where one casts
one’s eyes and how closely
one looks  What Is a Philosopher?
                Simon Critchley (google)
 
A “philosopher” is an academic myth.
Ideal: archetype. No such thing as a
real philosopher. A mode, maybe: all
of us slip into it from time to time.
 
Contemplate. Ruminate. Speculate.
Like the Liberal Art: no such actual
deal. Imagine a starving liberal artist
binging and purging to keep the
weight down.
 
I know The P in our Phdegreed is
merely a manner of speaking & I
invoke it ironically. We’re physicists,
chemists, biologists, environmentalists,
sociologists, various kinds of humanist,
but not philosophers or even philosophical
about our disciplines or at least not in
public. That would be unprofessional,
& possibly  embarrassing. if one,
settling a pillow by her head,
should say, that is not what I
meant at all That is not IT at all.

There are nowadays professors of
philosophy, but not philosophers.
Yet it is admirable to profess
because it was once admirable to live.
 
To be a philosopher is not merely to
have subtle thoughts, nor even to
found a school, but so to love wisdom
as to live according to its dictates, a
life of simplicity ,independence,
magnanimity, and trust. (snicker)
 
It is to solve some of  the problems
of life, not only theoretically, but
practically.

The success of great scholars and
thinkers is commonly a courtier-like
success, not kingly, not manly. They
make shift to live merely by conformity,
practically as their fathers did, and
are in no sense the progenitors of a
noble race of men. But why do men
degenerate ever? (snort)
                     Thoreau, Walden
 
When I’ve crossed a line I hear the
snicker from the Savvy  and a snort
from  the Conscientious. signaling
my approach to frontiers yet unknown  
 
I see we are approaching a pair of docs,
says Bohr. We must be making progress.
 
The origins of comedy, tragedy, and
scientific invention  (emergent phenomena)
arise as two or more matrices, frames of
reference, belief &  bias systems, mind-sets,
traditions,disciplines, conventions, customs,
or cultures  
                collide,
 
snickers and snorts not with standing
announcing the portentous crash like
caged  doves in a mind shaft, like
homeland  security bells & whistles,
like BB Wolf huffing and puffing,
like Glenn Beck caterwauling, Sarah
Palin locking & and loading, sick
sea turtles showing up  in Louisiana
wetlands, Arlen Specter rejected &
sent packing, snort & snicker, snicker
& snort signaling us:  letting us sense
we’re in new frontier land. Be aware.
Be wary. 

xxxooo, Sam