fuckphilosophy.com

Just one quick thing to say to the world…I just read this article about this indian tribe in Brazil that has never had contact with civilization. (Check out the photos of them shooting arrows at the helicopter). Anyways, if you look at these photos, and you see the grass huts out in the jungle, don’t you think they might at least like to have the opportunity at a life in the city? Yeah, it is questionable to just run in with the Bible and start baptizing them, but how about a brochure of what life is like in the city? It is a strange reaction that some people think that we should just leave them be,  and not contact them at all. How long? Forever? While we are having this endless orgy in the big city, they are digging in the dirt, shooting arrows at anything strange that they come accross. Do we assume that they wouldn’t want to? Do we have an idea that it is romantic and peaceful in the jungle and that we know it is in their best interest to let them have their peace for as long as we can? Is it that we don’t want to be liable for their culture’s disintegration and assimilation into ours? A brochure and invitation would be better than waiting until the logging trucks show up. Can’t we put them up somewhere? Study them or something? They don’t have to bag groceries or anything; they presumably could be of some other value. I know this sounds horrible, and I am not suggesting that we corral them up and stick them in some anthropology dept., but I’m just questioning this intention to leave them be.

This is a follow-up to a comment I made in my last post about you-know-who (we must pass over it in silence). I made a comment that there are no philosophers anymore (never was, maybe one). What I meant is just this: that there are no philosophers anymore. ‘Philosopher’ is of a kind with concepts like ‘unicorn’. I may have suggested this in an earlier post, but my suggestion is that the term be replaced by ‘philosophy people’. If that sounds boring I also came up with ‘philosophizers’. I might like that one better. Say that one a few times (out loud) and you’ll come to like it I think. ‘Philosopher’ refers to the Platonic idea of the philosophizer. ‘Philosopher’ doesn’t pick out anything in this, the actual, world. Hell, it might not even pick out anything in all possible worlds. I mean, how could there be? Now we have the strong claim that there are necessarily no philosophers.

Going against everything I just said, now that I think about it, the real problem might be in referring to oneself as a ‘philosopher’ without tongue-in-cheek. Putting these two ideas together we have ‘philosopher’ as the Platonic idea as well as being kinda alter-indexical, as in it can refer to anyone except me. As confirming evidence (even though evidence doesn’t confirm theories, we can make this exception I think) that this is correct we need only look at Socrates. Socrates is the Platonic idea of the philosopher without question, qualifications, and without any of ya’ll’s back-talk. This makes sense because Plato came up with Platonic forms, and he learned philosophy from Socrates, and his idea of what a philosopher is was based on Socrates. Therefore, Socrates is the Platonic form of the philosopher. (Starting to make some sense now, eh?) Also, Socrates claimed to have no wisdom and rather tried to extract wisdom from others (which makes sense, but a dumb idea nevertheless); therefore, he probably didn’t consider himself a philosopher. Therefore! Exactly what I said above (I don’t feel like trying to figure out what I was talking about).

THEREFORE, there are no philosophers. ESPECIALLY if you think you are one. If you think you are one then you MOST DEFINATELY are not one. See how that works? That’s like some zen shit or something. It’s that easy to do philosophy! That is our goal here at fuckphilosophy.com: to show you the folks at home that you can do philosophy too. Now you know (and knowing is half the battle).

P.S. I am aware that the above made no sense. Therefore, if you laugh at me and point out how it doesn’t make any sense, it won’t hurt my feelings because I already know that.

This is going to be the second and last post about Keira Knightley. These posts are only nominally about Keira Knightley. She isn’t what we are really talking about here. It is the principle of Keira Knightley that we are really talking about. Now you may ask yourself, “what on Earth is he talking about? ‘The principle of Keira Knightley’?” Even though we say ‘fuck philosophy’ here at fuckphilosophy.com, we are still philosophers here. (When I say “we…here at fuckphilosophy.com” you can feel free to envision me as one of a staff of philosophers…and by the way, there are no philosophers anymore, and if I ever refer to myself as a philosopher you can take it as a joke, ok? Because that is what we do here at fuckphilosophy.com: we put the ‘fuck’ in ‘philosophy’. Yes, I bet you didn’t know that there is ‘fuck’ in ‘philosophy’. It’s in there, even if you can’t see it. That is philosophy right there, just think about that one. Philosophy is f-ing easy!) Philosophers talk about principles, and not the bag of bones that is Keira Knightley’s person. Philosopher’s talk about the principle of the matter, we are philosophers here, and yet we say “fuck philosophy”? So what is the principle of saying ‘fuck’ to philosophy? That will have to be addressed at a later date. Back to the matter at hand.

So, if we’re not talking about the bag of bones, that bag of protein water and bones, then what are we talking about? What I want to know is: how does Keira Knightley know how to do that? What is it that Keira Knightley does so well? One could say that she is sexy. It doesn’t quite describe it to just say that Keira Knightley is sexy, or really sexy or really really sexy. Saying she is “sexy” sounds so dumbed down, reduced to a quantity of some standardized common denominator stuff. I think there is a technical term in Hollywood for what we are talking about: “it”, as in “she’s got it”. You could call it ’star power’, but again with this dumbed down industrial strength nonsense. (”Dumbed down” is a dumb-ass term too. I feel dumb just saying it. I wish I could think of another. ‘Deflationary’, that is the word I was looking for.) It would be incorrect to say that Keira Knightley is just a human being like you or I. Sure we are all just bags of bones, but that isn’t what I mean. To say that she is a really hot one also doesn’t seem to do it justice. All these stupid words. Deflationary rough approximations of ineffable fucking nonsense. That is why I rather like the term “it”. Don’t ask what it is. You know what it is. And if you don’t, then I guess we can’t talk about it. And if you do, then we don’t have to talk about it, because you already know what I’m talking about. Fuck it.

In summary, the principle of Keira Knightley is not found within the bag of bones herself. The principle of Keira Knightley is different in kind from the principle of this staff philosopher here at fuckphilosophy.com. And finally, that famous quote from Wittgenstein: “What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence”.

First off, I just want to say that Adaptation is one of my favorite movies and I’m sorry if I’m not very charitable to Charlie Kaufman the man in this post. I can identify with his characters, and I am super critical of myself, so it is easy for me to be critical of him. He makes it easy too because he doesn’t mask it at all in his movies.

Here is my very uncharitable summary Kaufman’s work:

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INT. CHARLIE KAUFMAN’S APT – DAY

Charlie Kaufman is sitting at his typewriter or computer working. We see what he is typeing: “INT. CHARLIE KAUFMAN’S APT – DAY…Charlie Kaufman is sitting at his typewriter or computer working, we see what he is typeing: “INT. CHARLIE KAUFMAN’S APT – DAY…”" And all the while there is a voice over: This is a great idea! I’ve finally found it! Wait, maybe its too self-indulgent, I’M too self-obsessed! I’m pathetic.

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I don’t want to give Synecdoche, New York away, so I won’t. I haven’t actually seen the movie, but I read the script. It was actually really good (the script). Synecdoche, New York has very similar themes to Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. One reviewer described it as a summation of his other movies, and I think that is pretty accurate. It clearly reprises the roles played by the neurotic of Nicolas Cage’s two characters in Adaptation and Jim Carrey’s in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It deals a lot with these characters’ relations with women, issues of inadequacy, unfulfillment, but also on these characters’ creativity, which often borders on the megalomaniacal. I can imagine Kaufman writing his next screenplay (also on similar themes) and his girlfriend realizing that there isn’t going to be just one movie on this topic, but one after another variation on these themes. She then starts to pity and detest him. But he’s Charlie Kaufman the great screenwriter… Yeah, but what is exciting about a guy who is trapped inside himself, can’t get out of this mise en abyme, not only that, he has hollowed out a cavernous space where he can lovingly model his own self-loathing and insecurities. In this way it is also a mise en abyme of Narcissus, in love with his own reflection.

I can imagine Charlie Kaufman growing up reading superhero comics and writing his own stories about superheroes. Then later he took a few psychology classes, read some Freud or something, and the result is stories of severly insecure day dreamers frustrated with the world, and also subject to almost blinding moments of super human inspiration. I suspect Charlie Kaufman’s father was not the one wearing the pants in the house either. I’m guessing that he had a mother who thought that he could only shit Tiffany cufflinks. Hence the themes of “having good ideas” and seeking approval from women.

I picture Kaufman writing and having what seem like empyrean insights. The other side of these moments of inspiration is that they are very isolating; one must get very wrapped up in their thoughts, to an almost paranoid and solipsistic extent. This is clear in the self-reference and the almost dissociation brought about by this. Kaufman is human though; one comes back from these creative depths wanting to share what you have discovered, to be able to commune with another like one is able to do with their ideas.

I guess I don’t know that Kaufman the man is anything like these characters. I assume he is, because Adaptation is about him adapting a book and that character is very similar to these other characters. Anyways, like I said, Adaptation is a GREAT movie, and Synecdoche, New York will probably be great too. Forgive my speculations on Kaufman’s character, but his is an interesting one.

by the way, i just wanted to say fuck philosophy. fuck socrates and kant…especially kant, and whoever else, like plato for instance. fuck defining terms, fuck necessary and sufficient conditions, fuck being charitable to other philosophers, fuck having to be certain and in the right, fuck all these huge-ass dense-ass books (like kant’s ones for example), fuck having to carry them around, fuck adverbs (like ‘presumably’ for instance). that just about covers it, and you get the idea anyhow. this should always be in the background here. were there a harpsichord continuo for this site, it would have something of this tenor.

First of all, before I get to the confession, I probably think about this too much, but I have had a hard time trying to figure out what to do with these blogs. Not that I don’t have anything to say, but I had this idea that the content would be somewhat focused. But I might just loosen the constraints a bit, starting with this confession.

This is a little embarrassing but I feel like I need to let it be known that I am making a clean break. I rented a Keira Knightley movie (it doesn’t matter which) from the school library today. I don’t know why I did it. Actually, it was a little premeditated. I downloaded it, but it wasn’t widescreen, so I didn’t feel I would be able to properly enjoy it. Anyways, I saw it at the school library today and rented it. I’d seen her before in another movie, and I guess… Sorry, I’m a little embarrassed. At some point during the movie I was wondering why my chest felt so tight; I had to keep reminding myself to breath fully. I’ll spare you the other details (that’s not what I meant – I don’t think Keira is that kind of girl). Now that I think of it, I have been moved by other love stories in the past, mind you, every time I was watching them alone. I guess it didn’t ever strike me as a problem until tonight. Like I said, I’m making a clean break. This doesn’t have to affect your image of me. I’m paying the censor extra to keep that part of me locked down.

I haven’t been writing on this and part of the problem is that i have had a busy semester, and another is that after a year studying grad school philosophy has made me self-conscious. i like fuckphilosophy.com better, so i plan to continue there. maybe i’ll come back to findphilosophy.com after i have a better foothold on wisdom. i’ll probably copy some posts over to fuckphilosophy, and after that i’ll probably forward any traffic to fuckphilosophy.