Reason, sagacity, surrealism, macros and memes.
When I speak of macros, I'm referring to these kind of things. An example of surrealism is given here.
People, according to Kant and Schopenhauer, cf. Beleuchtung eines Streites zwischen Immanuel Kant und Arthur Schopenhauer bezüglich der Dummheit der Masse des Volkes, possess two different kinds of intelligence:
But here the topic is the opposite, not how to reconcile and resolve, but how to divide and deride.
Of course, nothing has changed since Schopenhauer's days. He complained about Hegel and Fichte just extracting from notions what they themselves had put into them without any understanding of or even bearing on reality, and he observed that attending a university doesn't automatically make you more intelligent. And when he turned to the concrete, it was in full knowledge of that he was relying thus on common sense as opposed to the understanding of the learned.
Actually, there is an old dislike amongst free cities against universities. Hamburg, for instance, Schopenhauer's home town, got its first university only in 1919, whereas Kiel got its already in 1665 under Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and there is an old liking amongst dukes, kings and the like for them, which probably tells us something about their political effects, i.e. that they make the youth regard themselves superior, on the grounds that they know and are able to apply the maxims of the state, without however being able to judge their purported merit.
So, this is an old conflict, as old as the human intellect: How to weigh experience and logical conjecture?
And since politics has begun to be shaped by visionaries, it has become a political conflict as well, although less honest, for for a visionary to succeed his followers must just do that, follow, whereas logical conjecture in engineering needs valid premises to work.
Then, what are the methods of derision?
As Schopenhauer explained, the triumph of sagacity over reason expresses itself in laughter, i.e. that if our judgment finds that a thing isn't what our reason had suggested, we laugh. So the propaganda of common sense against the understanding of the learned relies on showing a thing and what the learned call it.
Hence Dali's surrealism, mixing opposing suggestions, and macros and memes, pointing out what's ridiculous.
But as Schopenhauer also said:
It's best, when both camps find a solid hold in society, thus the sagacious make the visionaries prudent and the learned the sagacious innovative. When both camps fear to be eradicated, it's worst. Then the learned will authorise transgressions and the sagacious grow grim.
People are good, overall, when they forget that they lose their sanity - and goodness. The learned fall easier than the sagacious. This is not the time to strive to be learned, nor the time to despise the human race. But you see the world as it is.
I have to end on this note. Understand the world around you, assess the depth into which people have fallen, whether it's shallow or lasting, keep your spirit up high, understand the intellectual emptiness, understand its bad, but inevitable effects, understand the constraints put upon the world, and then withdraw and take it in.
Postscript from the following day. Even though this has the potential to ruin your day by bouts of returning laughter, I cannot not share this wonderful example of spoofing, which totally agrees with the spirit of this article:
People, according to Kant and Schopenhauer, cf. Beleuchtung eines Streites zwischen Immanuel Kant und Arthur Schopenhauer bezüglich der Dummheit der Masse des Volkes, possess two different kinds of intelligence:
- sagacity, which deals with the concrete, and
- reason, which deals with the abstract.
But here the topic is the opposite, not how to reconcile and resolve, but how to divide and deride.
Of course, nothing has changed since Schopenhauer's days. He complained about Hegel and Fichte just extracting from notions what they themselves had put into them without any understanding of or even bearing on reality, and he observed that attending a university doesn't automatically make you more intelligent. And when he turned to the concrete, it was in full knowledge of that he was relying thus on common sense as opposed to the understanding of the learned.
Actually, there is an old dislike amongst free cities against universities. Hamburg, for instance, Schopenhauer's home town, got its first university only in 1919, whereas Kiel got its already in 1665 under Christian Albert, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and there is an old liking amongst dukes, kings and the like for them, which probably tells us something about their political effects, i.e. that they make the youth regard themselves superior, on the grounds that they know and are able to apply the maxims of the state, without however being able to judge their purported merit.
So, this is an old conflict, as old as the human intellect: How to weigh experience and logical conjecture?
And since politics has begun to be shaped by visionaries, it has become a political conflict as well, although less honest, for for a visionary to succeed his followers must just do that, follow, whereas logical conjecture in engineering needs valid premises to work.
Then, what are the methods of derision?
As Schopenhauer explained, the triumph of sagacity over reason expresses itself in laughter, i.e. that if our judgment finds that a thing isn't what our reason had suggested, we laugh. So the propaganda of common sense against the understanding of the learned relies on showing a thing and what the learned call it.
Hence Dali's surrealism, mixing opposing suggestions, and macros and memes, pointing out what's ridiculous.
But as Schopenhauer also said:
Everything is ridiculous to the sagacious, and nothing to the reasonable.So this war will never be won. Because the propaganda of the learned must likewise make all its proclamations hallowed in fatefulness.
It's best, when both camps find a solid hold in society, thus the sagacious make the visionaries prudent and the learned the sagacious innovative. When both camps fear to be eradicated, it's worst. Then the learned will authorise transgressions and the sagacious grow grim.
People are good, overall, when they forget that they lose their sanity - and goodness. The learned fall easier than the sagacious. This is not the time to strive to be learned, nor the time to despise the human race. But you see the world as it is.
I have to end on this note. Understand the world around you, assess the depth into which people have fallen, whether it's shallow or lasting, keep your spirit up high, understand the intellectual emptiness, understand its bad, but inevitable effects, understand the constraints put upon the world, and then withdraw and take it in.
Postscript from the following day. Even though this has the potential to ruin your day by bouts of returning laughter, I cannot not share this wonderful example of spoofing, which totally agrees with the spirit of this article:
- Vendémiaire - Wheezy,
- Brumaire - Sneezy,
- Frimaire - Freezy,
- Nivôse - Slippy,
- Pluviôse - Drippy,
- Ventôse - Nippy,
- Germinal - Showery,
- Floréal - Flowery,
- Prairial - Bowery,
- Messidor - Hoppy,
- Thermidor - Croppy,
- Fructidor - Poppy.
Labels: 22, bons mots, formalisierung, geschichte, gesetze, institutionen, präsentation, sehhilfen, zeitgeschichte, ἰδέα, φιλοσοφία
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09:45
