Who Is IOZ?: A Coherent Philosophy

Monday, December 05, 2011

A Coherent Philosophy

What are we gonna do? you asked; I said
we'll smoke a J and drink some Burgundy ,
make out, make love, live relatively free,
grow old, forget ourselves, and end up dead;
I mean, you said, about society!
Who will build the roads? Dole out the bread?
Represent my interests in my stead?
Police the streets? Ensure tranquility?
I haven’t got a clue; I have this breath
engendered by evolutionary luck,
which lasts just long enough to know the rare
brief pleasures life permits to us; if death
be unavoidable, then ima fuck,
get drunk, play ball, sing loud, jack off, and swear.

47 comments:

Picador said...: Bravo. My favourite yet.; 3:53 PM
PR said...: Do you know the one about a lady from Nantucket?; 4:03 PM
Anonymous said...: I used to get irritated with IOZ's condescension directed towards anyone who tried to do anything to help people (liberal tools, all) until I realized he honestly doesn't give a fuck about society.; 4:16 PM
NutellaonToast said...: I take it this is your answer? I feel so unsatisfied. Just like a young man coming in for a quickie...; 4:16 PM
NutellaonToast said...: Guy goes on a lot about the moral depravity of others for someone who just doesn't give a fuck.; 4:16 PM
Professor Coldheart said...: Some of them want to use you; some of them want to get used by you.; 4:17 PM
Anonymous said...: "play ball" as in basketball?; 4:17 PM
Weeble said...: So basically you're going to do everything that doesn't involve roads.; 4:19 PM
Anonymous said...: Hey there Nut Toast...you mean just like a young man zipping up AFTER a quickie?; 4:42 PM
Freddy el Desfibradddor said...: On the other hand, there are Gurdjieff's Five Strivings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOaqDsYZkaE

"All the beings of this planet then began to work in order to have in their consciousness this Divine function of genuine conscience, and for this purpose, as everywhere in the Universe, they transubstantiated in themselves what are called the
"being-obligolnian-strivings" which consist of the following five, namely:

The first striving: to have in their ordinary being-existence everything satisfying and really necessary for their planetary body.

The second striving: to have a constant and unflagging instinctive need for self-perfection in the sense of being.

The third: the conscious striving to know ever more and more concerning the laws of World-creation and World-maintenance.

The fourth: the striving from the beginning of their existence to pay for their arising and their individuality as quickly as possible, in order afterwards to be free to lighten as much as possible the Sorrow of our COMMON FATHER.

And the fifth: the striving always to assist the most rapid perfecting of other beings, both those similar to oneself and those of other forms...up to the degree of self-individuality."; 4:51 PM
Anonymous said...: "where we're going, we don't need...roads."; 6:02 PM
NutellaonToast said...: No, nony, I don't:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnhqkpvPLis; 6:14 PM
Inkberrow said...: "I don't know just what it's all about

So put on your red pajamas and find out"; 6:26 PM
rob payne said...: Another excellent poem. Roads all have pot holes anyway.; 6:38 PM
Anonymous said...: The bums will always lose.; 7:30 PM
Anonymous said...: And the flowiiing of puuus,
And the urine's red glare,
Gave proof every night
Gonnorheea was there!

You know what? Fuck gallstones. Fuck'em!

Capt'n Obvious; 7:44 PM
Aeolus said...: At least it's an ethos; 8:31 PM
Anonymous said...: but what we do without earnest busy bodies concerned about the process in which we select the people who are to tell some people to pay other people to build roads. do you see where your apathy leads, you bum?!; 8:38 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: uhh ... apparently you let that philosopy go long enough to master an artform half a millenium old (in English), and older still on the Continent ...

... as I've said before, you've mastered the art of playing to the groundlings as well as those in the stalls here ...

... which accounts for your bi-modal readership ...

... but still leaves you a bit of a fraud, no?; 8:58 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: Oh yes - and BTW, your colleague Andy Sullivan occasionally posts a guest occasional poem at the Beast ... this one:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/09/a-poem-for-saturday-1.html

was originally published in Poetry (yes - the real one ...)

Conway is a good web-friend of mine ... we've been kicked off all the same web po-boards for swimming up the moderators' assholes against the current ...; 9:55 PM
Happy Jack said...: Screw poetry. Big minds produce big ideas. A grandiose plan to remake society is the only way to show you care.

BTW, how do you pronounce Cabrini Green in Pittsburgh?; 2:41 AM
mistah charley, ph.d. said...: I posted this in the previous thread, but it also fits well here. Monsieur's sonnet, while expressing well the credo of poet as pig wallowing in sensual pleasures, may not fully represent the entirety of his true nature - he may have some concern for his fellow human being, the common good, and the future, deep down - deep, deep, deep down.

A Psalm of Life

Tell me not in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solenm main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.”

― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow; 7:20 AM
Gridlock said...: The common good. Ha. How's that working out for ya?; 8:04 AM
Rumpleforeskin said...: Okay, but for those of us so recalcitrant as to not have been fathered by CEOs, life is a bit more prosaic.; 8:05 AM
IOZ said...: You're off by a few centuries, E.L., but I appreciate the sentiment, even if I haven't been bi since I was 13.; 8:19 AM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: Rumple -

Love your nic, BTW ... but are you suggesting that there is a Prince Hal element to our young host's character ... ?; 8:20 AM
John Kindley said...: I don't think a "grandiose plan to remake society" is called for. Get rid of the legislators; get rid of the judges (but not the jurors); get rid of the federal, state, and county governments (except, perhaps, as confederations of even smaller governments); and you'll still have Law. You'll still have what Nietzsche called the "song of the necessary, the single and irreplaceable melody."; 8:22 AM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...: Off by a few centuries?

I am willing to stand erected, but working solely form memory, I would have sworn Wyatt and Surrey were working in the 1500's ... Petrarch I'm cloudier on, but I know he had to predate W & S ...

Re your bi-modality at 13 ... although I actually didn't intend the bi pun, I'll go with it just long enough to ask whether your past episode(s) of bi-modality imply that Michelle is correct in your case ... it was a choice?; 8:28 AM
Justin said...: I realized he honestly doesn't give a fuck about society.

Clearly, that is wrong. He gives many fucks about society, he even referenced getting laid twice in this poem in response to be asked about what one should do in society.; 9:55 AM
Anonymous said...: GALLSTONES!

Capt'n Obvious; 10:12 AM
mp said...: yes, yes, yes.; 10:16 AM
Anonymous said...: For folks that haven't been following this blog for long:

"you're nuts if you think you can up and change a society like that, or from that. that's the whole fucking point, man. that's the whole gist of this blog, man: let people alone. permit everything. approve nothing. I can see how some of this might be confusing for some of ya'll. . .because I mean, the laws were there and they were bad to begin with. . .and we must never have such bad laws . . .therefore we must have better, more equitable, less racist laws? WHY DON'T YOU STOP ENFORCING STUPID FUCKING SHIT? how about that? why is that not the simplest and best argument? ENFORCE NOTHING. JUST FUCKING STOP. it actually is that breathtakingly simple.
Mr Fundamental"

You heard the guy? Just fucking stop. Leave people alone. They'll be just A-OK without your care or caring...

Capt'n Obvious; 10:37 AM
NutellaonToast said...: I've never seen that as the slam-dunk screed that bears repeating as others have. Asking for a society in which people stop enforcing stupid shit is asking for a lack of society. Enforcing arbitrary demands (along with practical ones) is the definition of society. It's what people do.

If it isn't a government, it's something else, throughout history: a social circle, a religious organization, whatever. People always tell each other what to do. You can't stop that. We're fucking co-operative animals.

I know the logical rebuttal is "well people choose their blah blabh. If Marcy's mean Jane can find new friends" shit but I don't buy that either. One, part-and-parcel is that we have only evolved a desire to tell people what to do because we've also evolved a desire to do as told. You can see that starkly in Ozzie's calling Obama a house slave and a sociopathic dictator, alternatively; It works because Obama is both.

Two, that's still fucking bullshit coercion. I mean, ya, we can all check out anytime we want. Live off the grid. The woods are RIGHT THERE man. Go pitch a tent far from the prying eyes of the predator drone. But that's not really free-will so much as a Hobson's choice.

If I'm faced with the false dilemma of Fundie's screed about WHY CAN'T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG versus Ozzie's "fuck it" I say, "Let's go bowling"

The thing is, based on his other writings, I don't believe Ozzie when he says he doesn't have some bright dream for a utopia, some vague idea of "it would be so much better if only." Unless maybe that's just a change in his worldview over the past few years that I've missed.; 11:24 AM
Anonymous said...: "Let's Go Bowling"
NoT

Let's

Capt'n Obvious; 11:56 AM
lucid said...: Nutella - Go back a month or so to the comment debates about determinism. You'll find your answer quite clearly.; 11:58 AM
NutellaonToast said...: I think I remember that discussion, but I don't remember if IOZ endorsed the opinion as his own, or not.; 3:50 PM
Professor Coldheart said...: If it isn't a government, it's something else, throughout history: a social circle, a religious organization, whatever. People always tell each other what to do. You can't stop that. We're fucking co-operative animals.

Yes. Exactly. You've hit it. Who's buying this round?; 4:40 PM
Paul said...: Shorter IOZ: I fiddle not despite, but because Rome burns. So there.; 12:07 AM
Rocky Rococo said...: My Dear Mass Transit Advocates,

Under Anarchism, why would I wish to ride the train?

Other than to take the skinheads bowling, of course.

Yours in Chrisis,

Rocky Rococo
Archvillain; 4:35 AM
Anonymous said...: We're fucking co-operative animals.
+
"Doc, it hurts when I do this!
- Then don't do that!"

=

What the fuck is your motherfuckers problem with Monsieurs approach?!

I'll get the next one, professor.
G15 bitchez!; 8:03 AM
Justin said...: People always tell each other what to do. You can't stop that. We're fucking co-operative animals.
...
I know the logical rebuttal is "well people choose their blah blabh. If Marcy's mean Jane can find new friends" shit but I don't buy that either. One, part-and-parcel is that we have only evolved a desire to tell people what to do because we've also evolved a desire to do as told.

If you are telling people what to do, you are probably not cooperating anymore. I also don't buy anything about, in, near or around the idea that we have co-evolved two desires, or that desires as they manifest in culture are evolution, meaning that they are hardwired into our nervous system, to be told and to tell others what to do. It would be like saying that we have evolved the desire to want to accumulate material goods. We have evolved social capacities, and we have evolved the mental capacity for long term planning to mitigate the risk of starvation owing to variations in the weather. The ordering people around and buying a closet full of shoes is acculturation piggybacking our desires.

The frustration you have encountering the mindsets of people here, and it will never be resolved by anything anyone says or thinks other than you, is that you have looked into the Rorshach blot of human nature and imparted your interpretations and conclusions as concrete facts, and extrapolated those 'facts' as the general explanations for why society is the way that it is. Anyone who has a different made up story about human nature, and there are plenty, or a different set of extrapolations from those impressions, is arguing from a different set of premises.; 8:13 AM
mistah charley, ph.d. said...: A Rorschach test is being given, and each response has sexual content. At the end, the examiner says, "You seem to be preoccupied with sex." The respondent replies, "Why do you say that, doc? YOU'RE the one with all the dirty pictures."; 9:20 AM
d.mantis said...: I swear to God i thought Nut was gonna drop the Somalia example.

If I read that "critique" in response to anarchy one more fucking time I swear I will go to the bookstore and strangle the first person I see who picks up a Rand novel.; 2:32 PM
NutellaonToast said...: Justin, I'm mostly frustrated because no one will answer my question. I'm not being disingenuous here, though I can definitely appreciate why people are bent on thinking so. Neither I nor many others have given them reason to think otherwise.

I, too, am against STUPID SHIT, so, maybe I'm already an anarchist and don't know it. Let's talk! I promise to NEVER bring up Somalia!; 5:17 PM
demize! said...: The realization that one is limited doesn't negate the realization that the world is filled with the ignominious and detestable as well as the sublime. Being agnostic on the method or modality of a more just society isnt a sign of "not giving a fuck ". The man critiques where he desires to criticize. I have no desire to read the manifesto of an ideologue ay this location. YMMV..; 2:01 AM
Anonymous said...: Yeah, I hate telling other people what to do even more than I hate doing as told. I can't stand any position of authority (like Jr. High School Teacher), because I can't stand the humbug.

I once took one-a-them Myers-Briggs tests where the result was like, "You are WXYZ ... you prefer to interact with others as equals." To which I was like, well, duh.; 12:03 PM
Anonymous said...: I meant 'well, duh, doesn't everyone?'

Alas, no.; 12:04 PM

Monday, December 05, 2011

A Coherent Philosophy

47 comments:

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