[alt.gothic.bookworms] Ubik.
Tetsab
Minion Matthew. Do not fear. The Leader is safe and in command. All hail
Tetsab, Keeper of The Tin!
The book to read for discussion Nov. 1st is Death is a Lonely Business
by Ray Bradbury. The reminder of this will come in Oct. 16th.
***
<respond & insert your review of Ubik by Philip K. Dick here>
***
If so inclined <respond & insert [up to] 3 books for Tin Inclusion>
***
Ta!
Tetsab
>^..^<
/mk
--
"Almighty God and heavenly Father, who hast in wisdom seen fit to
withhold from us at this time thine accustomed bounty: We most
humbly praise thee for still bestowing upon us far more that we
deserve." -- Defective Harvest Prayer #1.
Louise Gilmour
: Er. This is your Exalted Leader speaking, as channeled through her Meek
: Minion Matthew. Do not fear. The Leader is safe and in command. All hail
: Tetsab, Keeper of The Tin!
You do realize that I will beat your ass for this paragraph when I get
home again. ;P =)
Tetsab.
>^..^<
Fireraven9
>by Ray Bradbury. The reminder of this will come in Oct. 16th.
>
>***
>
><respond & insert your review of Ubik by Philip K. Dick here>
>
>***
>
>If so inclined <respond & insert [up to] 3 books for Tin Inclusion>
>
>***
>
>Ta!
>
>Tetsab
>>^..^<
>
Ah, to get back to this ... nothing short of getting killed will keep me away
now!
Fireraven9
Alas, 'tis now and always has been thus. To argue on Usenet
is to debate a thousand howling winds. M.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GothicGardeners
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GardeninginNewMexicoandColorado
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> <respond & insert your review of Ubik by Philip K. Dick here>
I'm not going to do that yet, because I han't finished it.
I will say this, though. Dick is not one of those "science fiction"
writers --- and I don't want to get into a row about whether his stuff is
really "science fiction" --- but he's not one of those hard writers whose
interest comes in part from the fact that he's researched astronomy,
physics, and evolution, and come up with a vision of some really plausible
future, a vision of technological marvels, or some intriguing alien
ethologies.
Even so, his vision of the omnipresent intrusiveness of advertising seems
uncannily prescient. When was this written? in the mid-sixties?
> If so inclined <respond & insert [up to] 3 books for Tin Inclusion>
This, I can do. . .
"Hope's End" by Stephen Chambers
"Rules and Exercises for Holy Dying" by Jeremy Taylor
"Santa Steps Out" by Rob't Devereaux
--
IHCOYC XPICTOC D.G. IMP. LAURASIAE ET GONDWANALANDIAE
http://members.iglou.com/gustavus
Moisture is the essence of wetness!
Joe Brenner
>I will say this, though. Dick is not one of those "science fiction"
>writers --- and I don't want to get into a row about whether his stuff is
>really "science fiction" --- but he's not one of those hard writers whose
>interest comes in part from the fact that he's researched astronomy,
>physics, and evolution, and come up with a vision of some really plausible
>future, a vision of technological marvels, or some intriguing alien
>ethologies.
You know, I hadn't thought about that, but this of course is
a large part of his appeal among the lefty/lit-crit/"cool
people". They all seem to have a severe inferiority complex
at their inability to grasp technical matters, so it's
completely beyond their desire or ability to talk about a
few books by, say, Gregory Benford.
I was thinking about the people here who were complaining
that they thought that Dick was overrated, and I think that
that's probably true in some circles.
There's the fact that having a reputation as a drug-freakout
case causes a certain kind of person to give you automatic
credit for creativity...
And there's also the problem that most people raving about
Dick don't really know much about the culture that he comes
out of. They're not aware that there's a whole body of work
in SF that doesn't fit the stereotype of the Star Trek/Star
Wars/etc. Does Philip K. Dick deserve to be widely read?
Certainly. But there are a lot of other SF writers that
also deserve attention: Cordwainer Smith, Theodore Sturgeon,
Fritz Leiber...
>Even so, his vision of the omnipresent intrusiveness of
>advertising seems uncannily prescient. When was this
>written? in the mid-sixties?
More or less: 1969, but trust me, I was 9 years old then,
and we were already drowning in advertising.
John Brunner's masterwork [1] "Stand on Zanzibar" was
published in '68, and that also uses a lot of quotations
from advertising for the chapter headings. And supposedly
he borrowed this riff from mundane literature: John Dos
Passos's "USA" series (haven't read it myself).
Or consider Pohl and Kornbluth's "The Space Merchants" that
was published in '53 in book form (and serialized in Galaxy
in '52 under the title "Gravy Planet") that includes some
classic material like a board room scene where the execs are
lamenting that it's just become illegal to project ads on
windshields, and speculating that they might be able to get
around it by projecting straight on the retina.
Anyway, I have a few remarks about "Ubik", but I think I'll
let someone else go first this time...
[1] I would call "Stand on Zanzibar" Brunner's masterwork,
though I suspect that current popular opinion would probably
consider it dated and vote for his 1975 publication
"Shockwave Rider" instead. If you think the point of
Science Fiction is to be "prescient", certainly "Shockwave
Rider" qualifies. It concludes (SPOILER) with a cracker
worm that rips open every computer in the world, and
broadcasts all their secrets across the network.
Tim McGaughy
at ihcoyc...@aye.net wrote on 10/1/01 10:28 PM:
> Tetsab wrote:
>
>> <respond & insert your review of Ubik by Philip K. Dick here>
>
> I'm not going to do that yet, because I han't finished it.
>
> I will say this, though. Dick is not one of those "science fiction"
> writers --- and I don't want to get into a row about whether his stuff is
> really "science fiction" --- but he's not one of those hard writers whose
His stories are science fiction in much the same way H.G. Wells' stories
are.
The science fiction elements are just sort of there, they don't drive the
stories, and the stories themselves are usually about something totally
other.
Joe Brenner
issue of Nova Express, there's an interview with Tim Powers,
where they ask him about Philip K. Dick. This is part of
what he says:
It's hard to derive from reading biographies and his
letters, but actually he wasn't at all crazy. He would
speculate on all this weird stuff, and for the duration
of a day decide he believed *this*, but by the next day
he would have seen a bunch of flaws in it and be off
looking for a new theory. Among other things, he was
probably the best-read person I've ever met. And
probably the only actual genius I'll ever know well. And
also the funniest guy I ever met. All the time, you'd be
just killing yourself laughing. And I don't know if
that comes across clearly in his biographies. He always
seems to be this tormented, semi-madman hermit.
Tetsab
> A little more prevarication.
Don't know about anyone else [well, barring IX] but I ain't posting no
review 'till tomorrow morning [tis bedtime now].
> He always seems to be this tormented, semi-madman hermit.
Where does one learn things like this btw? [it just drifts through the
air as it's drifted into my head now.. and perhaps I'll pluck it forth
in the future: P.K. Dick Drug-addled-semi-mad-tortured-hermit-man].
I'm getting the impression from the conversations surrounding Dick
[mostly from the earlier conversation that I never did respond to in
response to the Sept 16th reminder post] that this is common knowledge
[though perhpas it's only in some circles]. I'd certainly never heard of
it before [but I'm not a science-fiction, or even sci-fi ;P reader].
Based on the two Dick books I've now read, tormented semi-madman hermit
isn't the impression I picked up. He puts things together well and his
characters have a strong social interplay; disconnection is lamented.
Tetsab.
>^..^< [but I'm sure that doesn't say much].
Tetsab
> The book to read for discussion Nov. 1st is Death is a Lonely Business
> by Ray Bradbury. The reminder of this will come in Oct. 16th.
Humph. When do we get to something like Middlemarch? =)
> <respond & insert your review of Ubik by Philip K. Dick here>
Just like last time we have an author I know nothing about [drug freak
crazy hermit man? Sure don't sound like it from his writing].
Well. That's not totally true. After all. I have read one of his books
before [and I'm *sure* ya'll can guess what book *that* was] but the
closest book I've read to something like this is Gibson's Idoru which I
read at the same time and sparked an a.g. post about a "fake" love [I've
never read a work of 'technical' science fiction either by the way].
[In fact. The more I do a.g.bw the more I feel I've read nothing ever].
Also. For the 1st 2 books of a.g.bw I kept brief notes throughout it.
Things I wanted to remember as key and quotations I wanted to relay..
but I never seemed to use them [now, I didn't keep them for this as I'm
back to reading on the train where it's too awkward. I realize how much
I relied on them now I don't have them.. ain't that always the way]?
So. That's my personal background out of the way...
For the first chapter of this book [about up until I got to Joe Chip
fighting with his door to get to interview Pat] I had not the remotest
clue what on earth was going on.
I was utterly disorientated and was left wondering if I was going to
read the whole book through and not get a grip on it and have to read it
again [I actually did go back and re-read the first chapter or so when I
was done to see my shiny new [kung-fu] grip of it in action [figure]].
I don't know what to make of this book. On one hand what is done is
quite clever. The weaving in of Pat and her ability, the quiet set-up of
Stanton, the mixed messages of death, living and expereince. That you're
never given a chance to get ahold of anything really solid.
Instead you're given a facinating little world to play around in and
interesting [and generally highly likeable] charaters. Joe Chip may be
certain type of workaday guy that you could find as a character anywhere
but it's less likely you find said workaday guy arguing with doors,
fridges and coffee machines.
And it's even less likely that the door says "I'll Sue!" or the coffee
machine will inform you that you're a no account deadbeat.
It's fairly amusing that this book is set in "1992" also. Because of
that date I can't help but feel [even though it probably wasn't a
consideration] that I've been drawn into the wacky timescape of the book
as a reader.
So. On one hand I admire the way he brought eveything together and came
up with this world and the way it bends. Leaves you in a futuristic
detective novel where the body is already there and ya'll be dead [and I
must say, I probably think of 'detective novel' as that's what a P.K.
Dick just *sounds* like he writes].
But on the other hand it irks me that he's wrote a book that gives him a
easy out for any and all loopholes [the whole book is a loophole and
that seems to be its point].
Like DeLint and his Out over one dimentional charaters since they were
paintings Dick has an out on a plotline that doesn't make sense since
it's almost Chinese puzzle box and not supposed to make sense until the
last level...
... but we never do get to the last level so it doesn't have to come
together. I can't decide whether or not to admire that or feel I've been
cheated [I guess it would depend on how many other authors out there
before and after Dick have played that as their hand].
The novel works in being memorable because I *feel* like I should be
able to put it together [I want to re-read it to see if I can] but know
that I can't. I want to give it to others to read to see what they think
of this as sneaky trick or admirably clever.
[The copy I got of the book has a quote by Ursula K. LeGuin commenting
that Dick is our homegrown Borges. This quote irked me severly when I
first started reading the book. But maybe now I can see what she's
getting at.
Dick would be a Borges who lacks the subtley and langauge of Borges
(cheering the latter in Borges is bloody weird since you get him in
translation) but still has clever.
Maybe you can only get a *homegrown* Borges by writing a story that's
done brash w/ no-nonsense langage but still has the elements of clever].
Who knows!
> If so inclined <respond & insert [up to] 3 books for Tin Inclusion>
Tin is a newsreader. It's hat. ;P =)
Anyways:
John Cleland - Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.
Yukio Mishima - Confessions of a Mask.
James Hogg - The Private Memoirs & Confessions of a Justified Sinner.
;)
Tetsab.
>^..^<
--
"Almighty God and heavenly Father, who hast in wisdom seen fit to
withhold from us at this time thine accustomed bounty: We most
humbly praise thee for still bestowing upon us far more than we
Jack
IHCOYC XPICTOC <ihcoyc...@aye.net> wrote in message
news:omau7.4447$S27.7...@e420r-atl2.usenetserver.com...
> Tetsab wrote:
>
> > <respond & insert your review of Ubik by Philip K. Dick here>
>
> I'm not going to do that yet, because I han't finished it.
>
> I will say this, though. Dick is not one of those "science fiction"
> writers --- and I don't want to get into a row about whether his stuff is
> really "science fiction" --- but he's not one of those hard writers whose
> interest comes in part from the fact that he's researched astronomy,
> physics, and evolution, and come up with a vision of some really plausible
> future, a vision of technological marvels, or some intriguing alien
> ethologies.
>
> Even so, his vision of the omnipresent intrusiveness of advertising seems
> uncannily prescient. When was this written? in the mid-sixties?
But it's really *not* that prescient. Pohl and Williams _The Space
Merchants_ addresses ubiquitous advertising and marketing driven consumer
culture considerably earlier than Dick does. (But it's not just them, it'd
been addressed in a lot of SF before Dick got around to it.)
Of course, Pohl and Williams aren't as big a part of of popular culture as
Dick is, so a lot of people are going to wind up viewing Dick as terribly
orriginal, whereas I just don't see that as the case.
> > If so inclined <respond & insert [up to] 3 books for Tin Inclusion>
>
> This, I can do. . .
>
> "Hope's End" by Stephen Chambers
> "Rules and Exercises for Holy Dying" by Jeremy Taylor
> "Santa Steps Out" by Rob't Devereaux
Erm, are any of these common enough that the rest of us have a prayer of
locating them within the time period that a monthly reading scedule gives
us, without having to resort to ordering them from Spamazon?
--
-Jack-
"Death, it's not just for breakfast anymore."
Jack & BlackIce pics at: http://photos.yahoo.com/thrintum
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> > "Hope's End" by Stephen Chambers
> > "Rules and Exercises for Holy Dying" by Jeremy Taylor
> > "Santa Steps Out" by Rob't Devereaux
> Erm, are any of these common enough that the rest of us have a prayer of
> locating them within the time period that a monthly reading scedule gives
> us, without having to resort to ordering them from Spamazon?
I've got an inexpensive trade paperback of "Santa Steps Out. . ." so I
figure it can't be that scarce. [I figured, since the next book to be
picked will be for December. . .] "Hope's End" is pretty recent, but
shouldn't be impossible to find. "Holy Dying" can be had online, at:
< http://www.ccel.org/t/taylor/holy_dying/index.html
The easiest approach might in fact be to read chiefly classic books
that -are- online. . . . There are enough of 'em to keep us busy for several
years at least.
Fireraven9
>locating them within the time period that a monthly reading scedule gives
>us, without having to resort to ordering them from Spamazon?
>
>--
>-Jack-
>"Death, it's not just for breakfast anymore."
I did order the November book. The library is slow about getting reserved books
to you and the local books stores sometimes have what I need, but no guarantee.
Fireraven9
"Zombies fear my tofu" DW
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GothicGardeners
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GardeninginNewMexicoandColorado
Joe Brenner
>Joe Brenner wrote:
>
>> A little more prevarication.
>Don't know about anyone else [well, barring IX] but I ain't posting no
>review 'till tomorrow morning [tis bedtime now].
>> He always seems to be this tormented, semi-madman hermit.
>Where does one learn things like this btw? [it just drifts through the
>air as it's drifted into my head now.. and perhaps I'll pluck it forth
>in the future: P.K. Dick Drug-addled-semi-mad-tortured-hermit-man].
>I'm getting the impression from the conversations surrounding Dick
>[mostly from the earlier conversation that I never did respond to in
>response to the Sept 16th reminder post] that this is common knowledge
>[though perhpas it's only in some circles]. I'd certainly never heard of
>it before [but I'm not a science-fiction, or even sci-fi ;P reader].
Well, yeah it is fairly common knowledge, among the people
who are likely to know such things. E.g. around the time of
his death, he got a eulogy from Ursula K. LeGuin, which
brought some complaints from Charles Platt that she had
previously publically announced that Dick was "going crazy".
(But then Platt, like me, kind of has it in for LeGuin. You
want to talk overrated? Forget Dick, LeGuin is the real hot
air balloon.)
The Tim Powers interview I quoted goes on to say that Dick
did have this one weird experience that he didn't know how
to interpret. For awhile he decided that he had been spoken
to by god (and around this time he wrote _Valis_), though he
later changed his mind about this.
Definitely a bit flaky around the ages, at any rate.
Joe Brenner
Reading "Ubik", I was immediately struck by the similarity
to much of the kind of SF that came out of Galaxy in the 50s
and 60s.
Where the difference comes in, I would say, is in the sheer
length of time that Dick spends with the narrative in a
totally confused "what-the-hell-is-going-on-here?" state.
I would argue that it's highly unlikely that Dick knew where
he was going when he was writing this book.
When the time rolled around to finish the book, he pulled
one possible set of explanations out of the mass of
possiblities, and dressed it up as the One True Truth (as is
required for books published as SF novels), but I don't
think his heart was really in it. Hence the tag, where he
kicks open some new possiblities again.
My evidence for Dick being as confused as the reader:
consider Pat, and her odd time-shifting power. This
capability turns out to be a totally unnecessary fantastic
element, and she ultimately turns out to be nothing but a
red herring, which seems like a total waste. She starts out
as the strongest character in the narrative, and ends up
dying ignomiously off-stage (her whole-death that is... her
half-death isn't very interesting either).
My candidate for funniest bit: Disney/Castro.
Joe Brenner
>Just like last time we have an author I know nothing about
>Well. That's not totally true. After all. I have read one of his books
>before
>[and I'm *sure* ya'll can guess what book *that* was]
It actually took me a minute.
>[In fact. The more I do a.g.bw the more I feel I've read nothing ever].
Life is like this. At least my life is. (I often feel like
I travel through life walking backwards: I trace the
influences on the things that influence me, and keep
wondering why I didn't start at the beginning.)
Byt the way, it's *really* interesting to get a reaction to
this book from someone who hasn't read that much SF, doesn't
know that much about Dick's reputation, etc.
>Also. For the 1st 2 books of a.g.bw I kept brief notes throughout it.
>Things I wanted to remember as key and quotations I wanted to relay..
>but I never seemed to use them [now, I didn't keep them for this as I'm
>back to reading on the train where it's too awkward. I realize how much
>I relied on them now I don't have them.. ain't that always the way]?
Post-it notes. Greatest invention in the field of
information processing technology of the century.
I slice up the small ones into tabs, and stick a stack of
them inside the front cover of whatever I'm reading.
>For the first chapter of this book [about up until I got to Joe Chip
>fighting with his door to get to interview Pat] I had not the remotest
>clue what on earth was going on.
>I was utterly disorientated and was left wondering if I was going to
>read the whole book through and not get a grip on it and have to read it
>again
Really interesting. My reaction was more like mild
annoyance: "come on, get on with it already".
>I don't know what to make of this book. On one hand what is done is
>quite clever. The weaving in of Pat and her ability, the quiet set-up of
>Stanton, the mixed messages of death, living and expereince. That you're
>never given a chance to get ahold of anything really solid.
>Instead you're given a facinating little world to play around in and
>interesting [and generally highly likeable] charaters. Joe Chip may be
>certain type of workaday guy that you could find as a character anywhere
The likeable schlemiel is something of a staple of "satiric"
50s SF (which I keep thinking of as "The Galaxy school", but
if you don't know anything about the old SF magazines, that
isn't going to help any).
>but it's less likely you find said workaday guy arguing with doors,
>fridges and coffee machines.
Not a bad piece of capitalism-out-of-control satire, really,
for 1969... though I have to confess I didn't think anything
much of it one way or the other when I read it.
>So. On one hand I admire the way he brought eveything together and came
>up with this world and the way it bends. Leaves you in a futuristic
>detective novel where the body is already there and ya'll be dead [and I
>must say, I probably think of 'detective novel' as that's what a P.K.
>Dick just *sounds* like he writes].
>But on the other hand it irks me that he's wrote a book that gives him a
>easy out for any and all loopholes [the whole book is a loophole and
>that seems to be its point].
>[...] we never do get to the last level so it doesn't have to come
>together.
I would say that you're supposed to *feel* like you've come
to the last level. But then there's that little tag
attached on the end to throw it open again.
> I can't decide whether or not to admire that or feel I've been
>cheated
Sort of. One view of SF is that it's about encountering
little puzzles (Van Vogt called them "hang-ups") as you
read, that are then resolved somehow. You encounter these
weird things that you fit into place my building up a view
of a future (or "future") world where the weird things make
sense.
(And fans of hard SF sometimes talk about "playing the game",
trying to pick logical/technical holes in the future world
that the author is presenting.)
There are other views of SF, though, where the "future
world", is just a literary device, an imaginary kingdom
where you can say things obliquely about the mundane world,
hence a school of "satiric" SF.
As you've noticed, though, this Dick novel is also edging
toward the later "pomo" fiction, where you might say that
one of the subjects of the story is the genre conventions
themselves. He's supposed to present a One-True Explanation
but he's doesn't really believe that kind of authority is
possible (how much do you ever *really* know with that
degree of certainty?).
From another point of view though, the lack of a real
wrap-up looks like laziness, and feels like a cheat.
>[I guess it would depend on how many other authors out there
>before and after Dick have played that as their hand].
I know I keep talking about precedent, but I'm not sure what
that really has to do with it...
> I want to give it to others to read to see what they think
> of this as sneaky trick or admirably clever.
Little of both.
>[The copy I got of the book has a quote by Ursula K. LeGuin
Uh oh.
>commenting
>that Dick is our homegrown Borges. This quote irked me severely when I
>first started reading the book. But maybe now I can see what she's
>getting at.
>Dick would be a Borges who lacks the subtley and langauge of Borges
>(cheering the latter in Borges is bloody weird since you get him in
>translation) but still has clever.
I certainly like a lot of Borges, but I'm not sure that Dick
has any less of a command for language. He really can
write, he's got a pretty solid grasp on the way words flow.
We might have to start playing dueling quotations here, but
take it from someone who's read a lot of clumsy writing:
Dick isn't by any means clumsy.
Joe Brenner
What the hell does the title mean?
Ubik => Ubique => Everywhere.
So the idea is "Everywhere is the answer to everything"?
Matthew King
: You want to talk overrated? Forget Dick, LeGuin is the real hot
: air balloon.
I like her Tao Te Ching. Sort of guiltily like, because she (freely admits
she) doesn't know Chinese, so it seems it shouldn't be "trustworthy" ...
but she's convinced me that she's got it (whatever it is).
Which reminds me again that I still have your post from weeks ago about
the Tao Te Ching sitting around, waiting for a reply.
The only novel of hers I've read is The Dispossessed. Not an artistic work
of genius, to be sure, but a mighty fine Novel Of Ideas, in my estimation.
I admire her courage to let her side (left anarchism) come out looking
worse--the best lines are spoken against it, anyway.
I've looked through a collection of her short stories, too. Most of them
appeared unremarkable. One of them was The Ones Who Walked Away from
Omelas, which, I gather, is a fairly well-known fable against the
utilitarian underpinnings of capitalism. It's very heavy-handed, and as a
story, I don't like it at all. But it strikingly illustrates an important
idea: sometimes the choices you're faced with are so horrible that all you
can do is walk away. It also makes for a useful example when you're
talking about the merits of utilitarianism.
The other story I remember from that collection was the remembrances of an
old tree standing beside a highway. It works off the conceit that the tree
moves while the rest of the world stands still. It's certainly the most
artful thing I've read by her. I think it made me look differently at
trees.
Matthew
-Matthew-King---"I-tried-to-tell-her-about-Marx-and-Engels------------
-Toronto---------God-and-angels-I-don't-really-know-what-for----------
-Canada----------but-she-looked-good-in-ribbons"-The-Sisters-of-Mercy-
Matthew King
: This Dick novel is also edging toward the later "pomo" fiction, where
: conventions themselves.
It seems like all genres tend very quickly and naturally to reflect back
on themselves. Horror is a more familiar example to me--it's awfully hard
to tell "straight" horror from satire, and always has been, as far as I
can see. Mysteries, too. How do you satirize Agatha Christie? By writing
just like Agatha Christie. I guess. I haven't really read any Agatha
Christie :). (I've read a bit of Mickey Spillane, though, and you sure do
satirize Mickey Spillane by writing just like Mickey Spillane. I think.
That was a while ago, too.;)
But look, already in the sixteenth century, Sidney was writing sonnets
about writing sonnets (Astrophil and Stella), and Shakespeare was putting
plays in plays (even if he wasn't writing plays about writing plays). So
we've been pomo in this sense for an awfully long time.
John Everett
> ... Shakespeare was putting plays in plays (even if he
> wasn't writing plays about writing plays).
Sure he was. The player advice to Hamlet. Cleopatra's line about boy
players squeaking her lines in Rome. The 'putting away of books' theme in
the Tempest.
> So we've been pomo in this sense for an awfully long time.
More accurately, the Decadent is a historically recurring artistic
phenomenon. Perhaps, Matthew, one day over a soy latte and some rice flour
biscotti, you and I shall discuss parallels between the Aestheticism
counterpoint to Romanticism and the Post-Modernism counterpoint to
Modernism.
Human culture is revolutionary -- and, given time, it always revolves the
full 360 degrees.
John
Matthew King
: "Matthew King" wrote...
: > ... Shakespeare was putting plays in plays (even if he
: > wasn't writing plays about writing plays).
:
: Sure he was. The player advice to Hamlet. Cleopatra's line about boy
: players squeaking her lines in Rome. The 'putting away of books' theme in
: the Tempest.
So much the better, then (presuming your examples stand up).
: > So we've been pomo in this sense for an awfully long time.
:
: More accurately, the Decadent is a historically recurring artistic
: phenomenon.
What's Decadent about self-reflexivity? (I could guess, but you're the
Expert (TM).)
: Perhaps, Matthew, one day over a soy latte and some rice flour
: biscotti, you and I shall discuss parallels between the Aestheticism
: counterpoint to Romanticism and the Post-Modernism counterpoint to
: Modernism.
My, how frightfully *dull* that sounds.
: Human culture is revolutionary -- and, given time, it always revolves the
: full 360 degrees.
I had a prof once who liked to claim (as if he were uttering an obscenity)
that Plato was the first postmodernist. Despite what you'd think if you
only *thought* about it, it's hardly a shocking claim. You only have to
start reading Plato (really reading, not just going on a treasure-hunt
with a ready-made map) to realize that it's all style, all irony, all
divergence, all in-joke, all traps laid for the reader.
Well, OK. By many definitions of "postmodernist", that makes Plato look a
lot like a postmodernist. Surely he's one of your Decadents--he certainly
thinks the world keeps getting worse and worse, and despite whatever
political experiments he may have conceived, his general feeling seems to
have been that people are too stupid to do anything about it. So all you
can do at the end of the day is make up clever jokes in the hopes that
people will either get them or not get them--you're vindicated, either
way.
I'd venture that the difference between Decadents like Plato and
postmodernists of the "Baudrillard" type is that "Baudrillard" has all of
History before him--so he sees the 360 degree revolution, over and over
again, and says, lookit, we never get anywhere. So let's just stay home,
eh? (Nietzsche was there with the Eternal Recurrance, but he still thought
we ought to strive for the overman. Still all-too-Christian, or
something.) It's not really *decadent*, as far as I can see, because it
doesn't oppose decay to progress--it says there's *neither* decay nor
progress, really. And damn you Modernist with your binary opposition
between the two, anyway!
IHCOYC XPICTOC
: Well, OK. By many definitions of "postmodernist", that makes Plato look a
: lot like a postmodernist. Surely he's one of your Decadents--he certainly
: thinks the world keeps getting worse and worse, and despite whatever
: political experiments he may have conceived, his general feeling seems to
: have been that people are too stupid to do anything about it. So all you
: can do at the end of the day is make up clever jokes in the hopes that
: people will either get them or not get them--you're vindicated, either
: way.
And, Plato's [or perhaps better, the Platonists'] doctrine that puts
ultimate reality in an ideal realm is ultimately not far removed, in its
practical effects, from the notion that all we can really talk about is
other words. Plato tries to safeguard Eternal Truth by putting it in a
place where it can't break because nobody can touch it. But saying
"thought is the ultimate reality" is not really that far removed from
saying "it's all about discourse."
--
IHCOYC XPICTOC http://members.iglou.com/gustavus ihcoyc(at)aye.net
+ DEUS VULT! +
+ Strip away the veils! +
**** This message has been placed here by the Tijuana Bible Society ****
Joe Brenner
>Joe Brenner (do...@kzsu.stanford.edu) wrote:
>: You want to talk overrated? Forget Dick, LeGuin is the real hot
>: air balloon.
>I like her Tao Te Ching. Sort of guiltily like, because she (freely admits
>she) doesn't know Chinese, so it seems it shouldn't be "trustworthy" ...
>but she's convinced me that she's got it (whatever it is).
>Which reminds me again that I still have your post from weeks ago about
>the Tao Te Ching sitting around, waiting for a reply.
>The only novel of hers I've read is The Dispossessed. Not an artistic work
>of genius, to be sure, but a mighty fine Novel Of Ideas, in my estimation.
>I admire her courage to let her side (left anarchism) come out looking
>worse--the best lines are spoken against it, anyway.
Not at all my memory of the Dispossed. I thought it was
fairly obvious who the bad guys were supposed to be, though
I guess they could have been sporting darker hats and
twirling their mustaches more.
>I've looked through a collection of her short stories, too. Most of them
>appeared unremarkable. One of them was The Ones Who Walked Away from
>Omelas, which, I gather, is a fairly well-known fable against the
>utilitarian underpinnings of capitalism. It's very heavy-handed, and as a
>story, I don't like it at all. But it strikingly illustrates an important
>idea: sometimes the choices you're faced with are so horrible that all you
>can do is walk away. It also makes for a useful example when you're
>talking about the merits of utilitarianism.
"The Ones who Walked Away" is the only Leguin piece that I
like: Omelas seems like a lightweight, impossible fairy tale
place, then the detail of the suffering child is introduced,
and suddenly it seems plausible, realistic. Deep down in
our guts, we feel that perfection is an impossiblity: we
reject any "utopia" not salted with the negative. Omelas is
the *almost* perfect... and the ones who walk away are the
ones who regard it as not good enough.
(But... shouldn't they launch a commando raid to
free the suffering child? Oops. Un-pc think. Sorry.
Perpetuating-cycle-of-violence. Must let the bastards
get away with it, or get booted from the hippie pacifist
club).
Anyway, to keep from repeating my anti-Leguin babbling too
much:
http://www.grin.net/~mirthles/doomfiles/UTOPIA.html
http://www.grin.net/~mirthles/doomfiles/PROVIDENCE.html
http://www.grin.net/~mirthles/doomfiles/LEGUIN.html
Joe Brenner
>Joe Brenner (do...@kzsu.stanford.edu) wrote:
>: This Dick novel is also edging toward the later "pomo" fiction, where
>: you might say that one of the subjects of the story is the genre
>: conventions themselves.
>It seems like all genres tend very quickly and naturally to
>reflect back on themselves.
Fair enough. This is something I've been thinking about
lately as well.
>Horror is a more familiar example to me--it's awfully hard
>to tell "straight" horror from satire, and always has been, as far as I
>can see.
I've wondered about the endless spate of sixties "james bond
spoof" movies (of which Austin Powers is only a revival).
The original Bond movies were not exactly serious (except
perhaps for the first one or two)... where was the need to
satirize it?
>Mysteries, too. How do you satirize Agatha Christie? By writing
>just like Agatha Christie. I guess. I haven't really read any Agatha
>Christie :).
I think Agatha Christie is beyond satire. It's like the one
and only ethnic joke about WASPs:
Q: Why are there no jokes about WASPs?
A: Because they wouldn't be funny.
(But I've read no more than one or two pages of Christie,
myself.)
(I've read a bit of Mickey Spillane, though, and you sure do
>satirize Mickey Spillane by writing just like Mickey Spillane. I think.
>That was a while ago, too.;)
As for Spillane... one wonders why a stand-up comedian would
bother to write a private eye routine when they could just
do straight readings of passages from Spillane.
But yeah, there's something peculiar about the history of
mystery stories. I'm going to have to read up on that
some time soon. The mystery novels that I've read from the
30s all seem to be referring back to an existing body of
literature. But what is it? How do you get from Poe to
Doyle to S.S. Van Dyne? Who had the nerve to say to
themselves "Oh, I can write that Sherlock Holmes junk" and
turn it into a genre?
>But look, already in the sixteenth century, Sidney was writing sonnets
>about writing sonnets (Astrophil and Stella), and Shakespeare was putting
>plays in plays (even if he wasn't writing plays about
>writing plays).
Yeah. "My mistress's eyes are nothing like the Sun." So who
ever said that they were? This sonnet is clearly refering
to some older style of "bad" poetry, but *what* poetry? Can
we even find any of it today?
>So we've been pomo in this sense for an awfully long time.
Okay... though there's a difference between just
making a self-reference and doing some kind of
subversive/deconstructive/pomosity. (I keep
considering comparing _Ubik_ to Delany's
_Dhalgren_, but then I decide I've been going on
too much already...) In it's own small way,
_Ubik_ is trying to undermine the conventions, it
gives you the feeling that you've at last arrived
at a real solution and then kicks the props out
from under it at the last second. You're not
supposed to do that in "science fiction". Maybe
you're not supposed to do that in fiction, period.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> "The Ones who Walked Away" is the only Leguin piece that I
> like: Omelas seems like a lightweight, impossible fairy tale
> place, then the detail of the suffering child is introduced,
> and suddenly it seems plausible, realistic. Deep down in
> our guts, we feel that perfection is an impossiblity: we
> reject any "utopia" not salted with the negative. Omelas is
> the *almost* perfect... and the ones who walk away are the
> ones who regard it as not good enough.
I generally have little use for LeGuin myself, but this story remains a
personal favourite of mine. But I never read those who walked away as
searching for another perfection; what they seem to be doing is rejecting
the nature of the bargain at the heart of Omelas. Whether it's about
capitalism or some such, I cannot know, but I suspect not, really --- to me
it seems more about a cosmic injustice that goes beyond human economies.
Quoting Brian Eno on his webpage about -Omelas-:
At lunch discussing comparative philosophical systems.
Bono maintains Judaeo-Christianity shows good results.
I say it's a question of what number and type of casualties
you're willing to tolerate (arrange various philosophies
along such axes). Some systems produce only total
losers and flat-out winners -- the banana republic
model -- while others attempt a 'spread it evenly'
approach -- welfare-stately. Is 'scapegoatism' -- a big
feature of many 'primitive' societies -- a way of trying
to visit all current psychological distress on to just
one person? And, if so, how do we feel about that kind
of deal -- where one person suffers enormously in lieu
of everyone else? Is this the basis of torture and The
Ordeals?
Of course, Christianity came up with one plausible solution for this, at
least in one reading of it, which may not be Bono's. The single scapegoat,
the one person who has to suffer for the general fucked-up-ness of Creation,
is God Himself. Looked at from one perspective, He's the only logical
choice.
--
IHCOYC XPICTOC D.G. IMP. LAURASIAE ET GONDWANALANDIAE
http://members.iglou.com/gustavus
True Religion, and undefiled, is this, To make restitution
of the Earth which hath been taken and held from the
Common people, by the power of Conquests formerly,
and so set the oppressed free.
--- Gerrard Winstanley
Matthew King
: And, Plato's [or perhaps better, the Platonists'] doctrine that puts
: ultimate reality in an ideal realm is ultimately not far removed, in its
: practical effects, from the notion that all we can really talk about is
: other words.
"Ultimate reality" and postmodernism don't mix. On *any* plausible
definition of "postmodernism".
: Plato tries to safeguard Eternal Truth by putting it in a
: place where it can't break because nobody can touch it. But saying
: "thought is the ultimate reality" is not really that far removed from
: saying "it's all about discourse."
Thought is not the ultimate reality in Plato. Ultimate reality is to be
*accessed* through pure thought. (You do know, right, that Plato's
dialogues usually present themselves as set dead against the sophists, who
are portrayed as champions of the belief that "its all about discourse"?)
But this assumes that Plato (ever) believed in the "theory of forms". I
don't think he did--I don't think it was ever more than a trial balloon
floated for the sake of argument. He has it shot down before long, anyway.
At any rate, my story of Plato-as-"postmodernist" rests on the assumption
that the usual accounts of "what Plato thought" are completely wrong-
headed.
Matthew
Matthew-King---Toronto---Canada---"Have-you-come-here-to-play-Jesus-
-----------------------------------to-the-lepers-in-your-head?"-U2--
John Everett
>> Perhaps, Matthew, one day over a soy latte and
>> some rice flour biscotti, you and I shall discuss
>> parallels between the Aestheticism counterpoint
>> to Romanticism and the Post-Modernism
>> counterpoint to Modernism.
>
> My, how frightfully *dull* that sounds.
I imagine -- if the biscotti were stale and the soy milk of a poor quality
for steaming -- it would be quite a dreadful experience.
> What's Decadent about self-reflexivity? (I could guess,
> but you're the Expert (TM).)
Alas, I have only critical, not creative, intelligence. Just guess and I'll
tell you if you're 'hot', 'cold', or 'getting warmer'..
> ... reading Plato... to realize that it's all style, all
> irony, all divergence, all in-joke, all traps laid for
> the reader.
Ah, Logic is only affirmed through rhetoric with Repeatability? Have you
deconstructed an author at a contradictory ideological crossroad -- like
Derrida did to Rousseau?
> Surely he's one of your Decadents--he certainly
> thinks the world keeps getting worse and worse,
> and despite whatever political experiments he may
> have conceived, his general feeling seems to have
> been that people are too stupid to do anything
> about it.
Only if his concept of a philosopher king was just a rhetorical facade for a
raw grab of power. Otherwise, he did have a vision of *progress*.
> It's not really *decadent*, as far as I can see, because it
> doesn't oppose decay to progress--it says there's
> *neither* decay nor progress, really.
I'd agree that without the myth of progress, no Decadent counter-point is
possible. However, the myth of progress goes pretty far back -- likely all
the way to a serpent whispering, "you too shall be as gods."
John
Cavalorn
Everett <eve...@virtu.sar.usf.edu> writes
>Alas, I have only critical, not creative, intelligence.
The devil imitates, and does not invent.
Cav
--
Give me a woman who's taken her knocks,
Who's tasted both gutter and stars.
Give me a lady with holes in her socks.
Give me a princess with scars.
Folkiegoth mailing list: http://www.yahoogroups.com/Folkiegoth
Jennie
>Yeah. "My mistress's eyes are nothing like the Sun." So who
>ever said that they were? This sonnet is clearly refering
>to some older style of "bad" poetry, but *what* poetry? Can
>we even find any of it today?
We can find absolutely fucking tons of it, actually. It was
massively popular in England, and still more so in Scotland, during
Shakespeare's career. Interestingly, it was a favourite obsession of King
James I&VI, who wrote some himself. James was well educated and could
handle the fashionable forms with something approaching elegance, but
sadly his imagination rarely advanced beyond cliche. It didn't matter to
him. He had a score of Scotland's best poets (all, as it happened,
dependent on his bursaries) to tell him how wonderful it was, and quite a
number of dashing young men to gift it to. Of course, in his later life,
Shakespear made a good bit of money out of James, too. ;)
Jennie
--
Jennie Kermode jen...@innocent.com
http://www.triffid.demon.co.uk/jennie
"It was for this that Rubin had been arrested. People in the unit who
disliked him had accused him of speaking out, after the offensive of
January 1945, against the slogan 'Blood for blood and death for death'."
John Everett
> The devil imitates, and does not invent.
Clever saying. Did you make it up yourself, or copy it from someone else?
Cavalorn
Everett <eve...@virtu.sar.usf.edu> writes
>"Cavalorn" wrote...
>> The devil imitates, and does not invent.
>
>Clever saying. Did you make it up yourself, or copy it from someone else?
I read it - and assumed the author was quoting a prior source - in a
book called 'Fantasy Wargaming' which my brother got for Christmas back
in 1982. A curious little text, it outlined a system based entirely
around classical notions of Heaven and Hell, including - and I have
never seen this elsewhere - statistics for God. 'Special characteristics
and notes: Three Persons. May operate independently.'
Joe Brenner
>Joe Brenner wrote:
>> "The Ones who Walked Away" is the only Leguin piece that I
>> like: Omelas seems like a lightweight, impossible fairy tale
>> place, then the detail of the suffering child is introduced,
>> and suddenly it seems plausible, realistic. Deep down in
>> our guts, we feel that perfection is an impossiblity: we
>> reject any "utopia" not salted with the negative. Omelas is
>> the *almost* perfect... and the ones who walk away are the
>> ones who regard it as not good enough.
>I generally have little use for LeGuin myself, but this story remains a
>personal favourite of mine. But I never read those who walked away as
>searching for another perfection; what they seem to be doing is rejecting
>the nature of the bargain at the heart of Omelas. Whether it's about
>capitalism or some such, I cannot know, but I suspect not, really --- to me
>it seems more about a cosmic injustice that goes beyond human economies.
I would have to look at the story again, though I suspect
there's little explicitly in the text to settle our
different interpretations here. But then, we're not that
far apart really...
The "bargain" that's being rejected in this scenario is a
pretty good deal compared to what most societies achieve.
There is one and only one individual sacrificed for the good
of all. (I don't really see how you can call this a
"cosmic" injustice... I think the essential feature is that
it's a small, bounded injustice.)
While not precisely about "capitalism", it is a feature of
"free market" oriented doctrines that the market is not
expected to achieve a perfect society, merely an optimum
one. Some degree of misery is presumed to be intractible:
attempts at fixing it fail, and end up generating more
misery by messing with individual incentives: providing a
safety net encourages risky behavior, etc.
My presumption is that it's this kind of doctrine that
LeGuin was obliquely addressing.
>Quoting Brian Eno on his webpage about -Omelas-:
(Just to be ridiculously clear: this is a quotation of Brian
Eno from his book "A Year With Swollen Apendicies", that I
happen to have up on a webpage about Omelas, because I
thought it discusses the similar issues.)
> At lunch discussing comparative philosophical systems.
> Bono maintains Judaeo-Christianity shows good results.
> I say it's a question of what number and type of casualties
> you're willing to tolerate (arrange various philosophies
> along such axes). Some systems produce only total
> losers and flat-out winners -- the banana republic
> model -- while others attempt a 'spread it evenly'
> approach -- welfare-stately. Is 'scapegoatism' -- a big
> feature of many 'primitive' societies -- a way of trying
> to visit all current psychological distress on to just
> one person? And, if so, how do we feel about that kind
> of deal -- where one person suffers enormously in lieu
> of everyone else? Is this the basis of torture and The
> Ordeals?
>Of course, Christianity came up with one plausible solution for this, at
>least in one reading of it, which may not be Bono's. The single scapegoat,
>the one person who has to suffer for the general fucked-up-ness of Creation,
>is God Himself. Looked at from one perspective, He's the only logical
>choice.
There's a Borges story that argues that Judas is the real
cosmic scapegoat.
Joe Brenner
>On 20 Oct 2001 00:17:26 GMT, Joe Brenner <do...@kzsu.stanford.edu> wrote:
>>Yeah. "My mistress's eyes are nothing like the Sun." So who
>>ever said that they were? This sonnet is clearly refering
>>to some older style of "bad" poetry, but *what* poetry? Can
>>we even find any of it today?
> We can find absolutely fucking tons of it, actually. It was
>massively popular in England, and still more so in Scotland, during
>Shakespeare's career. Interestingly, it was a favourite obsession of King
>James I&VI, who wrote some himself. James was well educated and could
>handle the fashionable forms with something approaching elegance, but
>sadly his imagination rarely advanced beyond cliche.
Well okay... I'll have to track some of it down some time.
You'd think there'd be an anthology covering this stuff.
"The Big Book of Cheese" or something. I mean, where are
you supposed to go if you want to crip a couple of lines for
a love letter? You pick up a Norton anthology, and it's
full of all this complicated intellectual shit....
IHCOYC XPICTOC
> >I generally have little use for LeGuin myself, but this story remains a
> >personal favourite of mine. But I never read those who walked away as
> >searching for another perfection; what they seem to be doing is rejecting
> >the nature of the bargain at the heart of Omelas. Whether it's about
> >capitalism or some such, I cannot know, but I suspect not, really --- to
me
> >it seems more about a cosmic injustice that goes beyond human economies.
> I would have to look at the story again, though I suspect
> there's little explicitly in the text to settle our
> different interpretations here. But then, we're not that
> far apart really...
> The "bargain" that's being rejected in this scenario is a
> pretty good deal compared to what most societies achieve.
> There is one and only one individual sacrificed for the good
> of all. (I don't really see how you can call this a
> "cosmic" injustice... I think the essential feature is that
> it's a small, bounded injustice.)
That would seem to me to be a function of with whom the bargain was struck.
> While not precisely about "capitalism", it is a feature of
> "free market" oriented doctrines that the market is not
> expected to achieve a perfect society, merely an optimum
> one. Some degree of misery is presumed to be intractible:
> attempts at fixing it fail, and end up generating more
> misery by messing with individual incentives: providing a
> safety net encourages risky behavior, etc.
The doctrines underlying at least the prevailing mode of capitalism start
from the assumption that a perfect society is unachievable, given the
unalterable constants that govern human nature, and indeed the nature of all
living things; the constraints of limited resources; the law of diminishing
returns; and so forth. They are probably right about this, but that's
another story. If so, then injustice is an inescapable consequence of the
way the universe works: a cosmic injustice, in other words.
The only way out seems to me to be to turn your back on the world and the
power that governs it. I can see why the story was thought to be about
capitalism.
> There's a Borges story that argues that Judas is the real
> cosmic scapegoat.
Another of my favourites. . . .
Tetsab
polish it up. Then Stuff Happened and I felt guilty responding after so
long to a dead thread.
Now the thread is *slightly* less dead I've decided I might as well post
it 'cause the guilt of not responding at all is eating my brain.
Worst part of it all is that most of this post Isn't Very Interesting:
Joe Brenner wrote:
> >[and I'm *sure* ya'll can guess what book *that* was]
> It actually took me a minute.
I'd think the game would get harder the greater ones knowledge of his
body of work.
> I trace the influences on the things that influence me, and keep
> wondering why I didn't start at the beginning.
Heh.
> Byt the way, it's *really* interesting to get a reaction to
> this book from someone who hasn't read that much SF, doesn't
> know that much about Dick's reputation, etc.
Cool.
It was very strange for me to have yourself responding with lists of SF
authors I'd never heard of and a mention of a rep I'd never encountered.
And a large part of what I've snipped out of the post I'm currently
responding to was a interesting flash-crash course in the SF world.
> Not a bad piece of capitalism-out-of-control satire, really,
> for 1969... though I have to confess I didn't think anything
> much of it one way or the other when I read it.
I was left wondering why we're not charged for door use now.. after all
they need maintanence too. ;)
...
> >[I guess it would depend on how many other authors out there
> >before and after Dick have played that as their hand].
> I know I keep talking about precedent, but I'm not sure what
> that really has to do with it...
"and then I woke up"
If loads of folks are doing it it's not very creative; more a cop out.
> I certainly like a lot of Borges, but I'm not sure that Dick
> has any less of a command for language.
What I'm getting at here is not a lack of command but a different sort
of command. Borges and Dick, AFAIC, have very different *tones* they
each can work their words but they do not work them in the same manner.
What I'm saying here [though not about D vs. B now] is that a person who
has a stark writing style can still say rich and beautiful things; but
they will do so in a manner far different than that of a lavish writer.
Joe Brenner
>I wrote this thing weeks ago and then stuck it in my drafts folder to
>polish it up. Then Stuff Happened and I felt guilty responding after so
>long to a dead thread.
>Now the thread is *slightly* less dead I've decided I might as well post
>it 'cause the guilt of not responding at all is eating my brain.
Well you know, usenet means never having to say you're sorry.
>It was very strange for me to have yourself responding with
>lists of SF authors I'd never heard of and a mention of a
>rep I'd never encountered.
Hmm... well, this is a question I've been thinking about
asking (though I know it has it's fundamentally dumb
aspects): can you tell us how you're deciding which books
to select for the alt.gothic.bookworms series?
It would have some bearing on what books I might try and
suggest... see, now that you're throwing Bradbury into the
mix, it's starting to look like you're doing a series of
SF-authors-that-academics-approve-of-to-some-extent.
Depending on what kind of tip you're on, I might suggest
some SF novels that academics don't seem to know about but
really should.
>> >[I guess it would depend on how many other authors out there
>> >before and after Dick have played that as their hand].
>
>> I know I keep talking about precedent, but I'm not sure what
>> that really has to do with it...
>"and then I woke up"
>If loads of folks are doing it it's not very creative; more a cop out.
Ah, I see your point. But the thing is that there are no
cliches so tapped out that a sufficiently brilliant writer
can't do something with... (Gaiman's "The Doll House"?).
Matthew King
: I generally have little use for LeGuin myself, but this story remains a
: personal favourite of mine. But I never read those who walked away as
: searching for another perfection; what they seem to be doing is rejecting
: the nature of the bargain at the heart of Omelas.
In the story, yes, that's what they're doing. But then, IIRC, she
somewhere claims that Anarres (in The Dispossessed) was founded by the
ones who walked away.
: Whether it's about
: capitalism or some such, I cannot know, but I suspect not, really --- to me
: it seems more about a cosmic injustice that goes beyond human economies.
It works on the cosmic scale, but knowing her political preoccupations,
it's hard not to read them into it.
: Quoting Brian Eno on his webpage about -Omelas-:
:
: At lunch discussing comparative philosophical systems.
: Bono maintains Judaeo-Christianity shows good results.
Now that's just precious.
IHCOYC XPICTOC
: In the story, yes, that's what they're doing. But then, IIRC, she
: somewhere claims that Anarres (in The Dispossessed) was founded by the
: ones who walked away.
Not having read The Dispossessed, I did not know that. This argues
strongly against LeGuin, I think. Omelas is a perfect miniature. What
makes it work is the mystery, the invitation to speculate, left in the
ending. Now I learn she turns around and spoils it. This looks like
serious cluelessness to me.
: : At lunch discussing comparative philosophical systems.
: : Bono maintains Judaeo-Christianity shows good results.
: Now that's just precious.
That's just creepy.
Islam had a golden age that lasted five hundred years. Pagan Rome did
almost as well. This was a more impressive achievement than either
capitalism or Christianity have to show for themselves.
Matthew King
: mak...@yorku.ca (Matthew King) writes:
: >I like her Tao Te Ching. Sort of guiltily like, because she (freely admits
: >but she's convinced me that she's got it (whatever it is).
:
: >Which reminds me again that I still have your post from weeks ago about
: >the Tao Te Ching sitting around, waiting for a reply.
Well, that post has dropped off the server, so a couple of thoughts here.
What presently interests me most in the Tao Te Ching is its resonances
with Western philosophy, both ancient and (post)modern.
Take the first chapter: it opens (in LeGuin's version), "The way you can
go isn't the real way. The name you can say isn't the real name. Heaven
and earth begin in the unnamed: name's the mother of the ten thousand
things."
Compare this passage from Parmenides: "[being] has been named all names
mortals have established, persuaded that they are true--to come to be and
to perish, to be and not."
In both, language introduces distinctions into an otherwise monistic
reality (Parmenides denies the possibility of coming to be and pershing in
reality, of not being, of negation). Notice that this differs from a
so-called postmodernism which would deny any reality prior to language.
Later on, though, Lao writes that "to order, to govern, is to begin
naming", which sounds very much like a familiar Foucauldian theme.
In general, Lao and Heraclitus write in amazingly similar terms about
"tao" and "logos", respectively: the tao and the logos are both unities of
opposites, and they are both a sort of unplanned-plan of the universe.
Heraclitus writes that "the logos is both willing and unwilling to be
called Zeus" (and it's a matter of scholarly dispute whether it can
legitimately be called God); similarly the tao has shown itself both
willing and unwilling to be called God or gods.
The similarities are amazing because Lao apparently lived some fifty years
before Heraclitus. Presumably there was no contact between them, but they
arrived at some of the same important ideas at roughly the same time.
Fast-forwarding a couple thousand years, you can see Nietzsche in Lao's
comment that "the soft, the weak prevail over the hard, the strong" (ch.
36), and that "by stillness the woman may always dominate the man, lying
quiet underneath him. So a great country, submitting to small ones,
dominates them; so small countries, submitting to a great one, dominate
it" (ch. 61). Of course, in Lao it's a piece of advice whereas in
Nietzsche it's a warning--but it's the same thought.
A little further on, there are a couple of Heideggerian echoes in this
passage: "Not knowing its real name, we only call it the Way. If it must
be named, let its name be Great. Greatness means going on, going on means
going far, and going far means turning back. So they say: 'The Way is
great, heaven is great, earth is great, and humankind is great; four
greatnesses in the world, and humanity is one of them" (ch. 25).
Primarily you can see Heidegger's idea of the "fourfold" (comprising
earth, sky, mortals, and divinities) of Being. You can also see an echo of
Heidegger's ongoing struggle to name Being--toward the end of his active
career, he'll put a cross through the word "Being", and he'll try just
referring to it as "the mystery"--as does Lao at the end of the first
chapter, where he calls it "mystery of all mysteries! The door to the
hidden."
One of the reasons for Heidegger's crossing out of the word "Being" is
that he says Being withdraws from us--as in Lao, the Great "goes far".
Further, Heidegger decides that the Western emphasis on Being leads to a
neglect of the nothingness from which Being springs, and which allows
beings to presence--an idea prefigured in Lao, for whom "being is born of
nothing" (ch. 40).
Finally, Lao echoes Heidegger's critique of technological nihilism: "those
who think to win the world by doing something to it, I see them come to
grief. For the world is a sacred object. Nothing is to be done to it. To
do anything to it is to damage it. To seize it is to lose it" (ch. 29).
To seize it is to lose it. That's the really important bit, isn't it? You
see that in Hegel, too: wielding power over something--especially over
someone--always risks negating itself. To dominate a person is to lose the
possibility of their recognition and respect. To dominate the world, to
see things as mere means to your ends, is to deny things any intrinsic
value--so you end up with a worthless dominion.
So. This isn't to say that you should like the Tao Te Ching :). It is to
say that, though the Tao Te Ching is a pretty "thin" book taken on its
own--it supplies only thoughts, not arguments, and so it may often seem on
the verge of platitude--it can be very thick, depending on what you do
with it.
Joe Brenner
>Matthew King <mak...@yorku.ca> wrote:
>: In the story, yes, that's what they're doing. But then, IIRC, she
>: somewhere claims that Anarres (in The Dispossessed) was founded by the
>: ones who walked away.
>Not having read The Dispossessed, I did not know that.
You would not know this from reading the Dispossessed,
I don't believe there's anything like that explicitly
in there.
LeGuin has done a lot of essayish stuff (which I'm only
slightly familiar with), which is where I believe this
idea comes from.
It's always hard to say what to do with this kind of
commentary by the author. The fannish mentality
takes it as gospel, but it often seems more complex
than that to me....
>This argues
>strongly against LeGuin, I think. Omelas is a perfect miniature. What
>makes it work is the mystery, the invitation to speculate, left in the
>ending. Now I learn she turns around and spoils it. This looks like
>serious cluelessness to me.
Well, there is this disease among aging SF writers
to try and claim that all of their stories share a
common background, and try and link them
together...
I'm tempted to agree about LeGuin's cluelessness,
but she's not alone in this department (e.g. I'll
never forgive Benfore for re-writing the ending to
_Across the Sea of Suns_).
>: : At lunch discussing comparative philosophical systems.
>: : Bono maintains Judaeo-Christianity shows good results.
>: Now that's just precious.
>That's just creepy.
>Islam had a golden age that lasted five hundred years. Pagan Rome did
>almost as well. This was a more impressive achievement than either
>capitalism or Christianity have to show for themselves.
Now, now... western culture has been doing okay for
the last 100 years or so at least. I might argue
that it's golden era has glittered brighter than all
previous golden eras...
In any case, we only have Bono's position in a
sketchy second hand form via Eno's account. We
don't really know what kind of "results" he was
talking about.
Neal Stanifer
Joe Brenner wrote:
>
> Well, there is this disease among aging SF writers
> to try and claim that all of their stories share a
> common background, and try and link them
> together...
I wonder how much this has to do with authors commenting on the book
they think they wrote, or the book they wish they had written, or the
oeuvre they imagine themselves producing or having produced.
Matthew King
: >of genius, to be sure, but a mighty fine Novel Of Ideas, in my estimation.
: >I admire her courage to let her side (left anarchism) come out looking
: >worse--the best lines are spoken against it, anyway.
:
: Not at all my memory of the Dispossed. I thought it was
: fairly obvious who the bad guys were supposed to be
Well, that's the thing: it's obvous who the bad guys are *supposed* to be,
but in the end, the good guys come out looking not much better if at all.
Here are my favourite lines--a bit of dialogue between Shevek, the
protagonist from Anarres, and Vea, a woman from (the authoritarian,
decadent) Urras:
"So you threw out all the do's and don't's [she says]. But you know, I
think you Odonians missed the whole point. You threw out the priests and
judges and divorce laws and all that, but you kept the real trouble behind
them. You just stuck it inside, into your consciences. But it's still
there. You're just as much slaves as ever! You aren't really free."
"How do you know?" [...]
"I know that you've got a [queen] inside you--inside that hairy head
of yours. And she orders you around just like the old tyrant did her
serfs. She says Do this! and you do, and Don't! and you don't."
"That is where she belongs," he said, smiling. "Inside my head."
"No. Better to have her in a palace. Then you could rebel against her.
You would have! Your great-great-grandfather did; at least he ran off to
the Moon to get away. But he took [the queen] with him, and you've still
got her!" (p. 185 in the Grafton paperback)
Shevek never has any good response to this--and a little while later he
tries to rape Vea. (He does this out of ethical stupidity, not malice,
which is ironic because, just before the passage above, he tells her that
anarchism frees people to be moral.)
Moreover, as I recall fuzzily, Le Guin has the administration of Annares
descend into a rigid bureaucracy with virtual leaders; labour-sharing
breaks down and class lines re-emerge.
By the way, I thought you were right that Le Guin doesn't make the
connection to Omelas in The Dispossessed, but here in this passage she is
alluding to it--and looking back to the beginning of the book, the
connection is fairly clear.
: (But... shouldn't they launch a commando raid to
: free the suffering child? Oops. Un-pc think. Sorry.
: Perpetuating-cycle-of-violence. Must let the bastards
: get away with it, or get booted from the hippie pacifist
: club).
That misses the point, though. They don't free the child because that
would be the end of the good life for everyone else--and taking the good
life away from everyone else would be just as much of an ethical disaster
as allowing the suffering of the child. They walk away because they're
faced with an impossible dilemma.
Matthew King
: It's always hard to say what to do with this kind of
: commentary by the author. The fannish mentality
: takes it as gospel, but it often seems more complex
: than that to me....
I'm not sure which is more annoying: an author telling you what her
characters have been up to when the readers weren't looking, or an author
claiming that her characters get up to all sorts of things she doesn't
know about when *she's* not looking. (The latter, I think.)
: Well, there is this disease among aging SF writers
: to try and claim that all of their stories share a
: common background, and try and link them
: together...
Aging philosophers are susceptible to this, too. But aren't we all, a lot
of us, anyway? To make a coherent whole, one rich tapestry out of the
fragments of our lives?
: Now, now... western culture has been doing okay for
: the last 100 years or so at least. I might argue
: that it's golden era has glittered brighter than all
: previous golden eras...
What's western culture? I take it you mean western technology (maybe with
the rider that technology has always been the telos of western culture).
Matthew King
: > but you're the Expert (TM).)
:
: Alas, I have only critical, not creative, intelligence. Just guess and I'll
: tell you if you're 'hot', 'cold', or 'getting warmer'..
In my grade seven spelling class, we went through words by their Latin and
Greek roots. One day, the teacher put "decadent" up on the board (along, I
suppose, with words like "cadence" and "cadaver") and asked us what we
thought it meant. Someone said "ten teeth".
Warm?
: > ... reading Plato... to realize that it's all style, all
: > irony, all divergence, all in-joke, all traps laid for
: > the reader.
:
: Ah, Logic is only affirmed through rhetoric with Repeatability? Have you
: deconstructed an author at a contradictory ideological crossroad -- like
: Derrida did to Rousseau?
Have I? The text, as always, deconstructs itself. Nietzsche was probably
the first to show how, in The Birth of Tragedy, though his focus was
Socrates (at the crossroad between art and philosophy). More recently,
Alexander Nehamas has pointed out how readers catch how Socrates makes
fools of others, but don't catch how Plato makes fools of them, the
readers.
Deconstructing Plato is too easy, though--that's my point. Plato labels
the strings to pull on to set the whole structure tumbling, which is what
might get him labelled a "postmodern" author today. The labels are usually
puzzles, and people usually miss them, but still.
(My favourite is in the Meno, which people usually take to be arguing for
the view that all knowledge is gained by disembodied souls which must then
struggle to recall it in their earthly lives. What everyone seems to miss
is that Socrates has already discredited that kind of philosophical
speculation earlier in the dialogue.)
And sometimes they're not puzzles. After Socrates goes through the cave
allegory, he says, "whether it's true or not, only the god knows." But if
you're reading the Republic as a treasure-hunt, to find what you think you
already know is there, you're going to miss that line completely.
: > Surely he's one of your Decadents--he certainly
: > thinks the world keeps getting worse and worse,
: > and despite whatever political experiments he may
: > have conceived, his general feeling seems to have
: > been that people are too stupid to do anything
: > about it.
:
: Only if his concept of a philosopher king was just a rhetorical facade for a
: raw grab of power. Otherwise, he did have a vision of *progress*.
The philosopher king is needed because the people are too stupid--
necessarily so, it seems; the masses are inevitably overcome by their
irrational appetites--to govern themselves. But the philosopher king is
likely also impossible, because the people are too stupid to accept him:
"as for anyone who tried to free them and lead them upward, if they could
somehow get their hands on him, wouldn't they kill him?--They certainly
would." (517a)
Something that always seems to be overlooked in the Republic is that the
republic as Socrates details it is not an ideal. He starts out describing
an ideal, but his interlocutors protest that it doesn't sound like much
fun. So he says, fine, let's talk about "the origin of a *luxurious* city.
And that may not be a bad idea, for by examining it, we might very well
see how justice and injustice grow up in cities. Yet the true city, in my
opinion, is the one we've described, the healthy one, as it were. But
let's study a city with a fever, if that's what you want." (372e)
It's this "city with a fever" that has the familiar division of classes,
overseen by the warrior class, the guardians--with only the impossible
possibility of the philosopher king to redeem it.
John Everett
> Someone said "ten teeth".
> Warm?
Indeed. Ten, being the number of completeness -- ten teeth, i.e. the
decadent, is the phase of a civilization fully within the maw of life's
reality.
> ... But if you're reading the Republic as a treasure-hunt,
> to find what you think you already know is there, you're
> going to miss that line completely.
Odd how the essence of Plato has been defined through history, not by the
complexities of the man's writings or by people like you who are willing to
embrace the intricacies of the text, but rather by the narrow mindedness of
treasure-hunting ideological freebooters. Damn those who miss the point
completely.
On the other hand, why is it so hard to accept that some ancient Greek guy
climbed on board an old train called "Platonic", while helping send a new
one called "Plato" out of the station?
John
Matthew King
: On the other hand, why is it so hard to accept that some ancient Greek guy
: climbed on board an old train called "Platonic", while helping send a new
: one called "Plato" out of the station?
By Heracles, that's just Everett's usual irony. I knew, and I said so to
these people earlier, that you'd be unwilling to answer and that, if
someone questioned *you*, you'd be ironical and do anything rather than
give an answer.
Thrasymachus
Matthew-King---Toronto---Canada---"Have-you-come-here-to-play-Jesus-
-----------------------------------to-the-lepers-in-your-head?"-U2--
John Everett
> ... usual irony... unwilling to answer... anything rather
> than give an answer.
Irony = *absence* of meaning???
> ... if someone questioned *you*
What would you have me address? Y'know USENET, unlike coffee house
discussions, aren't realtime. If you must know personal details, I have
found the passage in Ruskins _Stones of Venice_ concerning 'goth' -- but
both the legacy of a youthful motorcycle accident and the requirements of
some much overdue storage space clearing are slowing my ability to type the
passage in for discussion. The good news, however, is that I found in
storage my tape with 'The Bomb Song' on it! Patience, Grasshopper.
John
Matthew King
: If you must know personal details, I have
: found the passage in Ruskins _Stones of Venice_ concerning 'goth' -- but
: both the legacy of a youthful motorcycle accident and the requirements of
: some much overdue storage space clearing are slowing my ability to type the
: passage in for discussion.
Ah, the postmodernist confessional--style as sincerity. (More like the
other way around, maybe, but it doesn't roll off the tongue so well that
way.)
Joe Brenner
>Joe Brenner (do...@kzsu.stanford.edu) wrote:
>: Now, now... western culture has been doing okay for
>: the last 100 years or so at least. I might argue
>: that it's golden era has glittered brighter than all
>: previous golden eras...
>What's western culture?
Pretty much what you think it is.
>I take it you mean western technology (maybe with the rider
>that technology has always been the telos of western
>culture).
Well, western technology does play a large role in improving
the parade-to-misery ratio in the West.
(The usual counter-argument is that this high ratio is an
illusion resulting from exporting misery. It's a point, but
I think an exaggerated one.)
Western tech is also pretty impressive as a human
achievement in itself.
Joe Brenner
>: (But... shouldn't they launch a commando raid to
>: free the suffering child? Oops. Un-pc think. Sorry.
>: Perpetuating-cycle-of-violence. Must let the bastards
>: get away with it, or get booted from the hippie pacifist
>: club).
>That misses the point, though. They don't free the child because that
>would be the end of the good life for everyone else--and taking the good
>life away from everyone else would be just as much of an ethical disaster
>as allowing the suffering of the child. They walk away because they're
>faced with an impossible dilemma.
But why walk away at all if it's not actually going to
improve the situation? Are you supposed to torture yourself
to make yourself feel better about other people being
tortured?
If the idea is something like "if *everyone* walked away,
then the violence would cease", then at a bare minimum they
should be trying persuasion. "The Ones Who Surrounded
Omelas With Megaphones".
Matthew King
: >would be the end of the good life for everyone else--and taking the good
: >life away from everyone else would be just as much of an ethical disaster
: >as allowing the suffering of the child. They walk away because they're
: >faced with an impossible dilemma.
:
: But why walk away at all if it's not actually going to
: improve the situation?
Because they don't want to *benefit* from the situation, as everyone in
Omelas does. They can't tolerate having that on their consciences--it's
*unconscionable*. But their consciences can't tolerate taking the good
life away from everyone else, either--that's unconscionable, too.
Matthew King
: Pretty much what you think it is.
What I think it is when?
I presently have before me an article in which the author claims that "our
culture tends to avoid what is perceived as 'conflict' or
'confrontation.'" Strange claim. On the face of it, I take it he means
"Western culture". But certainly "Eastern culture" is supposed to be more
deferential, more avoidant of conflict, "more passive-aggressive" than
"Western culture". But maybe that's just Orientalism, right? A
misogynistic image of the East as woman (there to get fucked by the
West--naturally).
Maybe he means North American culture as opposed to European culture. We
North Americans seem to lack the Europeans' ability to fight without
getting nasty about it--we take everything so personally, don't we?
Anyway. Some months ago, the Quebec minister of culture caused an uproar
by claiming that Ontario has no culture. Toronto happens to be one of the
centres of the North American culture industry, so most Torontonians were
just dumbfounded at that idea. Depends what you mean by "culture", though,
obviously. (But then, what's obvious, to whom, is exactly the problem.)
: >I take it you mean western technology (maybe with the rider
: >that technology has always been the telos of western
: >culture).
:
: Well, western technology does play a large role in improving
: the parade-to-misery ratio in the West.
:
: (The usual counter-argument is that this high ratio is an
: illusion resulting from exporting misery. It's a point, but
: I think an exaggerated one.)
:
: Western tech is also pretty impressive as a human
: achievement in itself.
Right, and I took it that it was the impressiveness as a human achievement
in itself that you were identifying as *culture*-al--as the essence of the
present Western cultural golden age. (Were you? Or did you actually mean
art and literature and music?) I don't suppose that improving the
parade-to-misery ratio has much to do with *culture*--do you? It may have
had everything to do with culture during the Chinese Cultural Revolution,
or when Stalin made socialist realism the law, but not at the present
moment in the West, surely.
I mean, I doubt anyone believes for a minute that the American space
program exists to find better ways to grow lima beans (among whatever
other ludicrous experiments they claim to be carrying out up there). It's
really about cultural self-assertion, isn't it? And making sure you can
blow up the bad guys before they blow you up, of course ... but that isn't
why kids have posters of space shuttle lift-offs on their bedroom walls.
The posters are there because they're images of a pinnacle (one which we
may have moved past a bit, but not by much) of the present Western
aesthetic sensibility.
Or at least the present (North) American one. It's so hard to tell the
difference sometimes.
Tetsab
> Well you know, usenet means never having to say you're sorry.
Heh. A phrase so very useful in so very many ways.
> can you tell us how you're deciding which books
> to select for the alt.gothic.bookworms series?
Sure!
All of them.
Next question!
.
.
.
Okay. Okay. Not quite. Does this explain anything?:
http://www.students.yorku.ca/~yu248922/booklist.html
My shtick is that I made the original tin of books up from here:
http://www.gothic.net/%7Ethessaly/booklist/
I made up the tin with books from there so that I'd have an assured pool
of books to draw from in case people didn't end up suggesting many books
and thus all would end for want of books.
And the reason I choose to make up the tin with books from there rather
than from say, my personal To Read list or from a list of "great" or
"classic" books is that those books listed their are primarily from a.g.
recommendations, so *some* a.g. people probably have an interest in 'em.
When I say "suggest [up to] three books to add to that hat" [or whatever
it is I say] they're not actually "suggestions" - *any* book "suggested"
by a bookworm thread participant goes in the "hat". I type the title,
print it out, and toss it in with all the others.
Then on the first of the month I shake the "hat" [it's a coffee tin]
around, stick my hand in, and pull out the book that's to be read.
The reason that authors like P.K. Dick and Bradbury is there is "they're
populist, got mass appeal..." They're the sort of books your Average
Reader and the sort of books your Average List Maker will include. Feel
free to "suggest" books that are popularly ignored jewels as long as you
feel that they're *good* books.
> now that you're throwing Bradbury into the mix
So I'm not throwing anything; fate & primarily past a.g. readers are. :)
> it's starting to look like you're doing a series of
> SF-authors-that-academics-approve-of-to-some-extent.
I thought that the thing with academics and sci-fi is that as far as
academics are concerned "sci-fi" isn't even worth the time. ;)
A little pseudo experiment in this brings me to the courses offered by
my school's English department and the closest you get to a sci-fi class
is one that's taught because some of the books have biblical themes and
this is the value in them. Here's some of what you get in that class:
Doris Lessing, Memoirs of a Survivor
Walter M. Miller, Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz
James Morrow, This Is the Way the World Ends
Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine
Isaac Asimov, Stephen Vincent, Lord Byron, Arthur C. Clarke, Harlan
Ellison, Carol Emshwiller, Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Silverberg, J.G.
Ballard, David Brin, Olaf Stapledon, Bruce Sterling, Sherri Tepper, John
Wyndham, etc. etc.
After looking at the above list and reading "sci-fi" author Bradbury's
'Death is a Lonely Business' I say what the *hell* is sci-fi [or science
fiction]. But *no one* wants to do *that* argument.. It's one of *those*
arguements. ;)
> Ah, I see your point. But the thing is that there are no
> cliches so tapped out that a sufficiently brilliant writer
> can't do something with... (Gaiman's "The Doll House"?).
Right.
But to give the remark context.. in Dick's case we both observed that it
didn't really seem like he knew what he was doing with Ubik [Gaiman has
said that since the beginning he'd known where he was ultimately going],
you pointed this out more clearly than I.
Since Ubik seemed suspiciously haphazard it seems more likely that in
this case it was more cop out than creative move [the deciding factor on
this judgement being if this was a so-called 'convention of the genre'
before or if he was a innovator here].
In anycase.. I've still not settled on whether to respect him or dislike
him for his "cheat" ending. :)