On Fri, Mar 4, 2011 at 15:55:41
Robert asked this question:
I am a former engineer, and I have studied about 20 great cynic philosophers over the last 10 years. Diogenes, Voltaire, Buddha, Malthus and Schopenhauer are some of my favorites. I lived in the woods for 2 years to try and get a clearer view of cities, and find out what constitutes meaningful work.
Corruption seems very widespread within modern society. Everyone appears to be 'acting' in a very large play, which Shakespeare alluded to. I have a theory that 90% plus of the population of any given city has a small reality tunnel, and they may be a kind of farm animal that is working, paying rent, paying taxes and paying off debt for the better part of their adult life to benefit some wealthy elite(s).
I would like to know what your panel thinks would be a good livelihood for an intelligent cynical, stoical, pessimistic misanthrope?
World 1, as I now call it, lacks logic, proportion and integrity. I plan to spend the next year fishing and looking for silver coins on beaches with a metal detector. Is this where geniuses end up? I welcome your comments.
Well, Robert, to quote Morpheus, I know exactly what you mean.
The figure of Diogenes haunts me, ever since one of my students — coincidentally also called Robert — sarcastically referred to me as Diogenes in the marketplace. I made a page about Diogenes in Follydiddledah! (which I've referred to before). Being permanently hard up for cash, I don't have a lot of choices but at least I live in a house and not a barrel. I don't have to display my bare ass in the street while doing my daily ablutions.
My three teenage daughters rejected the academic world. One works as a nursing assistant in a local hospital, another is out all night doing gigs as a club DJ, the youngest is a singer in an aspiring heavy metal rock band. For lots of reasons, I'm not a good example — to anybody.
But let me tell you a story.
Yesterday, I travelled down to London to meet the people responsible for running the University of London International Programme in Philosophy. I was nervous about this meeting. Tutoring students for the University of London BA degree provides a good slice of my income. Yet I have done my best to remain aloof from the world of academic philosophy. For similar reasons to those you cite, I see it as a world mired in corruption. To survive as an academic philosopher today, you have to sell your soul many times over to ignorant administrators and the money men. You devise little tricks and ruses to enable you to carry on doing something worthwhile and real, while all the time you service the needs of a corrupt society steeped in materialist values.
I gave a good account of myself, while the inscrutable face of university bureaucracy smiled and nodded — and failed to understand a single word I was saying. I might as well have been speaking Ancient Greek.
The words of a song come to mind:
You've been with the professors
And they've all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have
Discussed lepers and crooks
You've been through all of
F. Scott Fitzgerald's books
You're very well read
It's well known.
But something is happening here
And you don't know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?
Bob Dylan 'Ballad of a Thin Man'
I would love to spend the rest of my life fishing and looking for coins on beaches with a metal detector. As long as I had my laptop and an internet connection — because I don't believe in hiding my light under a bushel.
You've got to shake your fists at lightning now
You've got to roar like forest fire
You've got to spread your light like blazes
All across the sky
They're going to aim the hoses on you
Show 'em you won't expire
Not till you burn up every passion
Not even when you die
Joni Mitchell 'Judgement of the Moon and Stars (Ludwig's Tune)'
If only.
But what will actually happen is that I will remain here for quite a while yet. It wouldn't be fair on the kids who lost their mother to lose their father as well. And they still haven't learned how to cook.
I will continue to expend all my passion loudly declaiming to my audience of twenty-seven (or however many it was yesterday, I haven't checked the web stats) for no reason other than my own pathetic need and vanity, but at least I recognize that fact. That's got to count for something.
You can't take it with you. Don't envy the 'wealthy elite', they may have the best healthcare but it won't save them in the end.
Meanwhile, all you rich and great cocksucking bastards, get out of my sunshine!
Robert, you and Diogenes (and Geoffrey!) are not exactly mainstream characters. Why is this? Because it is not the way to be?
ReplyDeleteWhy is your reading so limited? Is it good that your reading reflects yourself? This is the extreme of introversion. Freud said (I think) that mental health is being able to love and work. So, you could try this, after having contemplated the disadvantages of living in a wood and onamism generally.
I apologise for the comment. I write as a totally self-destructive person rather than a preacher.
With those points of view there is nothing else to do but to blow your heads.
ReplyDeleteThe world is what it is, you won't clean it up, but at least you can try coming down and join us in the mud of corruption in order to have a living and bring the good things that might be in you to help to build something better, if there is.
Best regards and take care guys.