A Defense of me!

Copyright 2020, InterAmerica

For a while now and currently, I’m the brunt of criticism, the main critique being that I write to provoke, to push buttons, to stir up the UFO crowd, to gain attention by being provocative.

Even from my own “clan” here.

Let me say that blogs or one’s writings should be hefty or provo- cative; otherwise what would be the purpose of taking the time to write and thrust drivel on one’s readers?

Yes, I like to disrupt. I’ve done that my whole life, as those of you who’ve read the newspaper accounts about me or the few, who’ve seen TV reports of my activities, know.

As for my assertions and conjectures inside this blog, that some think are blather and my attempt to play with readers….

Here are excepts from The University of Chicago’s latest sale catalog of books. The blurbs about some of the books offered, which I have or will, show my approach to enlightenment, which I try to share, despite the ornery reception by some, who rarely read a book, but do like the internet, and use it for their edification:

“Marion loosens our Borromean knots: the human enigma, the mystery of God, and the unknown of birth as well as death ... Negative Certainties, his latest book, questions the very possibility of these impossibilities.” [From Le Monde]

“Pippin … argues that Hegel’s thought remains relevant for helping one understand the achievements of modernist painting as philosophical achievements.” [After the Beautiful]

“Only Trawny, at this point, has offered the kind of sustained interpretation of the anti-Semitic pages in Heidegger’s Black Notebooks that we need if we are to determine for ourselves just how far his [Heidegger’s] thought is compromised by these reve- lations.” [Penn State University]

“Laugier … shows why Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell’s claim that to speak about language is to speak about the world in an anti-metaphysical revolution in philosophy, a revolution that transforms our understanding of epistemology and ethics.” [Why We Need Ordinary Language Philosophy, Duke University]

“This book uses fascinating historical and anthropological material to leaven a clear and provocative discussion of issues such as boredom, hypocrisy, evil, and innocence – phenomena that are at the center of most people’s evaluative lives.” [Human Predicaments, Oxford]

“Do we need medieval wisdom … to explore anew the foundations of modern rationalism?” [Leo Strauss on Maimonides, Review of Politics]

“Bartsch has a radical and provocative account of what Persius is up to: deliberately making his metaphors both disgusting and incoherent …”[TLS]

“In 1881, journalist Ambrose Bierce began writing satirical defi- nitions that would earn him the title of ‘the wickedest man in San Francisco … the perfect gift for misanthropes and world lovers alike.” [The Devil’s Dictionary]

As you can see, being provocative is a state of mind and reportage that is endemic to some, me among them, and old information [books, texts] that some eschew are important to read and are still relevant, even though a few here don’t think so, those I call “intellectual hippies” – persons high on, minutiae, nonsense, and ego.

I am not entranced by most of the comments presented here; they are often off-topic and flighty like the fluff that surfeits Facebook.

And I accept criticism collegially, although those who really know me, that’s not the actual case.

I hate criticisms from non-objective minds, and many who come here are exactly that.

So read the above blurbs, please. Know that being provocative – and “toying” with readers here, that Daniel understands fully -- is part of the “game.”

From the Chicago catalog is this: “All theory is grey, Mephisto- pheles pronounces in Goethe’s Faust.” [Page 22]

RR