Thursday, June 18, 2015

Hell Withem if They Can't Take a Joke.


YEK  Indo European  meaning “to speak”

  jewel  jocose  jocular  juggler  jeopardy
 joke
: all in the yek family,  sibling rivals.
  “The construction and payoff of  jokes and
the construction and  payoff of philosophical
concepts are made of the same stuff.  
      They tease the mind in similar ways.
That’s because philosophy and jokes  proceed
from the same impulse:  to confound our sense
of the way  things are, to flip our worlds upside
down, and to  ferret-out hidden, often
uncomfortable, truths about life.
 
What the philosopher calls an insight.
       the gagster calls a zinger.”
 
(Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein:
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar...)
  
Classical philosophy (liberal art) was
not said to begin until the mind was
blown (nirvana: “he blows!”) :categories 
 castigated, classifications castrated, 
terms of desire  doused, beliefs & biases
bowdlerized, prejudices paddled, 
convictions spanked, assumptions chastened 
with a stick so as to be stunned stupid: HA! 
just right for study. 

This excruciating process of deconstruction
was  called ELENCHUS, and the state of
MINDING  ultimately attained:  APORIA—
no pores, no passage, no exit. A consummation
devoutly to be desired & prerequisite to the
practice of philosophy (liberal art). 

Hardly ever reached, however. You can 
imagine the resistance. All the sparkling
dialogue going on and on by Socrates and his
peripatetic colleagues ending in whimpers,
cicadae crackling overhead. 

Not philosophy —only the prelude: prior to
the ludic (HA!)  which commences when 
there’s no ground & not a leg to stand on: 
bottoming 
                   bottoming 
                      
bottoming 
                                    
bottoming 
                                             
bottoming… 
& it’s turtles all the way down to in-the-beginnngs of philosophy, origins originating

originally; authors authorizing authority authoritatively.

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