Since we’ve been talking about gender a lot, and it’s Friday, and BooMan called me a gadfly, I thought I would spew some inflammatory rhetoric for a change.
There are three things women cannot do, and two of them have to do with cars.
1) Stare thoughtfully at automobile engines.
This is a well known fact: Women are incapable of the art of opening the hood and staring down contemplatively at the engine, rubbing their chins, pursing their lips and furrowing their brows.
Men, on the other hand, are born with an innate ability to gaze fixedly into the mystery of the engine, muttering occasionally. Whether he has any idea of what he is looking at or not, much less any idea how to fix it or not, is his business and his alone, and he knows how to keep that information close to the vest. Where it should be.
No man, whether he is a skilled mechanic or had to check his notes to be able to open the engine in the first place, will omit this important ritual of offering homage to the automobile. If he knows how to fix the car, he will do so after a suitable engine-staring period. If he does not know, only he will be the wiser, as he continues to stare, furrow and mutter until someone else appears, whereupon he can display his skill:
Man 1: (Stops car, opens door, puts one leg out, calls over the door: Got a problem there?
Man 2:(Briefly glances in direction of man 1, returns gaze to car, nods thoughfully) Mmmm-hmmm (mumbles indistinctly)
Man 1: (Approaches car. Both men stare reverently at engine, rub chins.)
Think it’s your battery?
Man 2: (Attempts to broaden gaze field to include entire engine, to mask fact that he does not know which object is the battery) That’s what I was thinking.
Man 1: You got some cables?
Man 2: (Shakes head slowly, raises eyebrows, turns corner of mouth down to indicate that either he has no idea what cables are, or does not have any.)
Man 1: (Politely refraining from speculating on which of the two possibilities mentioned above is the case)
I think I got some in the trunk. Lemme try to give you a jump. Go ahead and turn everything off
Man 2: (Gets into car, grateful for his rescuer has the good grace to respect his privacy in this matter)
Preciate it, man
Man 1: (Hooks up batteries with cables) OK, turn it on, let’s see what we got.
Car: Vroom
Man 2: (Gets out of car, both gaze at vrooming engine for a suitable period.)
That did it! Thanks man!
Man 1: No problem, take care now.
When faced with any automotive problem, women have only two possible responses: fix it or get it fixed. They are simply incapable of transcending this simplistic view and appreciating the tradition and complexity of the situation.
Women who know nothing about cars give themselves away immediately by shamelessly calling someone to fix the car, frequently without getting out of it at all.
Women who know how to fix cars barely glance at the engine without missing a beat in the conversation in progress, which seldom has to do with engines. Some women even go to the trunk to get tools BEFORE they open the hood.
2) Drive around with determined aimlessness when lost
If a man realizes, during the course of a trip, that he is neither reaching his destination nor has the foggiest notion how to do so, he will have the manly fortitude to continue driving until forced to stop by either lack of gasoline or more likely, a destination-dependent woman.
And face it, that is what women are. Destination dependent. Once she sets out on a trip, that is the only thing her feminine brain can focus on. If she becomes lost, she lacks the discipline and grit to keep that detail to herself and keep on driving, in circles if need be.
She is a slave to her fixation on arriving at the place she set out to go, and will even go so far as to seek out total strangers in whom she can confide and receive emotional support of a nature that she prefers to call “directions.”
Some women will even write down these “directions,” and follow them mindlessly. The whole concept of creative navigation is lost on them.
Men do not need directions. We know where things are. Like cats, we have a psi tracking factor, and just because it slips occasionally does not mean that we are going to tuck our tails between our legs and scurry whimpering off to some smirking gas station attendant to humble ourselves and become the butt of jokes once he gets off work and goes to have a beer.
We, unlike women, have pride. We will find it. Eventually. In most cases. And even if we do not, we have the satisfaction of knowing that we did not stop driving around looking for it.
Write their names in pipi
This is almost too tragic even to mention, but it is a fact that unless she is very skilled in certain forms of dance, and has a very short name, a woman will spend her entire life without even once knowing the sense of joy and personal accomplishment that can come only from writing one’s name in pipi in sand, snow, or other suitable surface.
Most women discover this deficiency early in life, and try to put a brave face on things, pretending that they do not give a fig that they never have and never will write their names or anything else in pipi.
Long after men have grown up and forgotten that they ever did it, a woman is doomed to stand on a solitary beach and reflect on childhood failure as she sadly writes her name with her toe.
Seriously, this needed a disclaimer on it for Drink Spitting, I almost showered my screen with the last sentence. Great job DuctapeFatwa!
These are the things that float through a woman’s mind after she has had 4 orgasms in a row. . .yep, things to consider and understand why we are the “lesser” sex.
I opened this diary prepared to stand firm and declare feminism alive and well…
Nah – guys just bragging about a few things they like to do… :^)
Hey, that’s not fair! I’ve had four orgasms in a row. It’s just that it took about 13 hours.
Somebody has to conserve energy in case there is a need to look at a car engine.
Sorry to let the side down, Ductape, but personally I’d prefer the 4 orgasms.
Neener, neener, nyah-nyah-neener.
Reminds me of a time I could not start my new Thunderbird (years ago) and 5 guys came to my rescue…after about 15 minutes I got exasperated as none of them had a clue and then I realized I had parked the car out of gear…. Duh…
Never met a man who could out orgasm me (years ago also) LOL!!..
ahh the good ole days…
That reminds me of a time I visited Paris. I opened the windows of the hotel room to take a picture of the city. Below were two motorcycle cops around a car on the shoulder with two more cops on the way. I set down the camera and steeled myself to see some bloody gore.
As I looked, I realized no one was hurt and the car hadn’t crashed– just pulled over. It might have been an arrest, but the cops where just milling about.
Then I saw her. I picked the camera back up.
A few more police stopped by, but left when they realized they would be in the second row of onlookers. Then a firetruck showed up. A half a dozen firemen, claiming slightly more relevance to the situation, expertly inserted themselves between the “victim” and the cops.
This went on for about 15 minutes. Cops and firemen jockeyed to rescue the victim while their subordinates and civilians stared at the engine. Some with unresolved priorities constantly wandered between the two scenes.
By now it was obvious: I should go downstairs and help her. Standing in that exhaust couldn’t be good for her, not after all she had been through. Perhaps she was hungry? I could order room service. Maybe, after dinner, I could take a look at her engine…
But just then a tow truck showed up and ruined everything.
So, after you’ve been driving around looking for someplace, if the battery dies because you got out to write your name in the snow, partly because you left your lights and the radio on but not the engine itself, partly because you have a really long name, and if another guy comes by and jumpstarts your car after some shared engine contemplation, is that a masuline trifecta?
LOL, all the way through this dary and comments.
Ductape you sly dog you, coming out with this diary on a Firday night to give us all a good laugh and a chance to spar a bit.
I am one of those women who has had a husband and a son who loves cars. I have had to stare raptly into untold car engines, not to mention every other part of the car there is. with a son who is building up a 4 wheeler with rock crawling abilities, fully articulated front end, another truck 1965 GMC pretty much built from the frame up, with no bed but curved tailpipes sticking up out of the bed, in the process of restoration, I could go on and on, but I do not stare blankly for I will be quizzed or asked to recall at some distant point of time all the details.
My first husband and I were into motorcycles and he said if you are going to ride you are going to fix it and when the clutch broke I did, and I fixed and maintained my bike to his satisfaction.
So I have spent many a long hour listening to the joys, details and tribulations of a car enthusiast, so I am afraid I do not fit into one of the above catagories.
Lol
That is very unladylike, and you will fool no one. People will know that you are not really sincere in your faked engine adoration, but seething with impatience to either fix the thing or have someone else fix it.
lol
You found me out and exposed me in front of everyone, lol….Never have I been accused of fake engine adoration.
Can I be forgiven for the unladylike behavior; but truly I tell you I am not adoring, but I merely stand meek at the feet of the knowlege of the wiser sex.lol
And if the other man also writes his name in the snow, they are brothers, and both will conceive sons that very night!
and you’re right – no engine staring. She just fixes it.
Often while a concerned (but clueless about cars) male stares helpfully. She finds that humorous, but sweet.
She should note carefully what part of the engine the man appears to be staring at, then with a delighted squeal of feminine glee, clap her hands, give the man a grateful smile, and thank him for identifying the problem so accurately.
Then, as she fixes it (if “it” happens to be somewhere different than where he was looking, she should be sure to reach over and sort of pat or tap that part several times during the repair)
Whatever the case, she should look up at him every few seconds, shake her head in wonder, and murmur things like, “Thank you so much! I NEVER would have figured that out!”
After it is fixed, she should thank him again for showing her how to do it.
Such a scenario would never even occur to her. And I am profoundly grateful that she would find the notion very silly indeed.
I knew she and her fellow gearhead boyfriend had what it took, relationship-wise when I watched the two of them spend hours fixing one of their (many) cars on an ungodly hot Texas afternoon. Tools were dropped, bolts were stuck, parts didn’t fit, they were covered in filth and sweat from head to toe – and they never yelled at each other!
I really like these young ones we’ve raised.
Okay guys – here’s a little competition – old bar joke
One woman and one guy standing outside by a wall. Woman says she can pee higher than the guy – guy gets his ego all puffed ip – yeah right no girl can pee higher.
Challenge who can pee higher up the wall?
Girl hikes up skirt, backs up to the wall, and pees.
Guy unzips pants – girls says nope – no hands.
We pee higher…….
I can infer this was a gay bar, if the guy was hetro and the woman had hiked up her skirt, he would likely be equipped to pee higher hands free.
In all the years that joke has been going around you’re the first to come up with that answer!
And most of the people I told it to were hetero!
ROFL – glad I put the coffee down before I read that!
I just have to ask, but would the mechanism still work in that event to allow for the pee, my understanding of the situation with men would be; that would be very difficult to accomplish, so women would still be first in the effort,….so if there was a time limit???? correct me if I am wrong…lol
Yep, there is a valve of sorts, but it isn’t as reliable as men would like to have women beleive (and it only kicks in right before male climax.)
Just think about the rather brief time lag between a man stumbling out of bed in the morning and rather unpleasant gurgling noises coming from the WC.
More than you ever needed to know about plumbing (warning, scientific, but graphic.)
Funny I was originally going to say, but not if he just got out of bed.
Cicero is right. There’s a point of no return, within which your equipment….hurts. See, it’s trying to do two things at once and EVERYBODY knows men can’t do two things at once. So you’re standing there, waiting for the internal PSI to come down, and the pee is RIGHT there, and it hurts, and your “other” back in the bedroom is wondering what the hell those strange sounds are, and….Well, you get the picture.
Us women that is..we get the er…equipment problem..
How God views the crime, from Mark Twain’s Letters From the Earth:
And you will remember that in the case of Adam’s posterity all the billions are innocent — none of them had a share in his offense, but the Deity holds them guilty to this day. None gets off, except by acknowledging that guilt — no cheaper lie will answer.
Some Midianite must have repeated Onan’s act, and brought that dire disaster upon his nation. If that was not the indelicacy that outraged the feelings of the Deity, then I know what it was: some Midianite had been pissing against the wall. I am sure of it, for that was an impropriety which the Source of all Etiquette never could stand. A person could piss against a tree, he could piss on his mother, he could piss on his own breeches, and get off, but he must not piss against the wall — that would be going quite too far. The origin of the divine prejudice against this humble crime is not stated; but we know that the prejudice was very strong — so strong that nothing but a wholesale massacre of the people inhabiting the region where the wall was defiled could satisfy the Deity.
Take the case of Jeroboam. “I will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall.” It was done. And not only was the man that did it cut off, but everybody else.
The same with the house of Baasha: everybody was exterminated, kinsfolks, friends, and all, leaving “not one that pisseth against a wall.”
In the case of Jeroboam you have a striking instance of the Deity’s custom of not limiting his punishments to the guilty; the innocent are included. Even the “remnant” of that unhappy house was removed, even “as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.” That includes the women, the young maids, and the little girls. All innocent, for they couldn’t piss against a wall. Nobody of that sex can. None but members of the other sex can achieve that feat.
[More below].
Without the use of hands, by, um, swinging my hips back and forth, I believe I can get up to 6 feet high. The problem is the arc of the splash would….um….end up in places I wouldn’t want to show in a bar.
bheuvel67 well now we know you are male, and the visual I got from your comment was priceless…
really lol this time
Damn straight! (laughs at self) You see, you have to understand what an engine compartment is. To a man, it’s like the Art Gallery of Chicago. So we open the hood, and just practice the REVERENCE for a minute or two. It’s not thinking about the problem, it’s a form of male worship. 😉
Forgot to mention performance anxiety, a common male problem I have heard, so would a man be able to perform the arcing and hip swaying in front of an audience in a bar,lol at that visual!!!!
Depends on the blood-alchohol leve. NEVER take a bet on the stupid things a man would do with enough liquid courage in him….;)
I have no sense of direction, so even when I know where I am going, I rarely get there without stopping to ask the way, unless someone else is also in the car.
I’ve never understood the staring at engines thing… my ex husband used to do that if anything went wrong with the car, and he knew less about things under the hood than I did.
What I really don’t get, though, is the tire kicking thing.
Thanks for the laugh 😉
Nanette, sorry. No guy does that any more. It went out with brimmed hats. Just not cool. (Plus, we got tired of hurting our toes.)
Actually, we look around to see if anyone is looking, THEN we kick the tires in SECRET. It’s very satisfying, on a Cro-Magnon kind of level.
Scientific studies have shown tire kicking is directly related to the Y chromosome.
Some doctors are now recommending tires as an IUD for a couple wishing to increase their chances of having a daughter. The male sperm are immediately attracted to the tire while the female sperm go swimming by.
Strange but true.
Legally hunt men. Imagine women having a two week open hunting season on men. This would get our attention. We would put the seat down, remember special days, and get projects done in a timely fashion. Lucky for us !! EtJ
Toe writing is very liberating, I assure you, it reduces the pain of finding no toilet nearby.
but I must prefer them in the form of “show me on this map where we are, and also where our destination is” (though usually I’ve already got the latter covered). Or just draw me a map. I hate verbal directions–if you miss one landmark or make a wrong turn, they become useless.
Alan
Maverick Leftist
Gadfly: NOUN: 1. A persistent irritating critic; a nuisance. 2. One that acts as a provocative stimulus; a goad. 3. Any of various flies, especially of the family Tabanidae, that bite or annoy livestock and other animals.
But this is not the definition that led me to honor DF with the moniker. He/she is not a nuisance in any sense of the word.
For if you kill me, you will not easily find another such person at all, even if to say in a ludicrous way, attached on the city by the god, like on a large and well-bred horse, by its size and laziness both needing arousing by some gadfly; in this way the god seems to have fastened me on the city, some such one who arousing and persuading and reproaching each one of you I do not stop the whole day settling down all over. Thus such another will not easily come to you, men, but if you believe me, you will spare me; but perhaps you might possibly be offended, like the sleeping who are awakened, striking me, believing Anytus, you might easily kill, then the rest of your lives you might continue sleeping, unless the god caring for you should send you another.
Socrates (469 BC-399 BC) Greek Philosopher
Socrates, like Jesus, forgot how to go along to get along, and probably deserved his fate. But that does not make him any the less of a jewel, and an example for the rest of us.
DF, watch your back brother…er…sister.
Reading that Socrates quote made me realize that Camile Paglia borrows much of his schtick.
Not that I’m a big fan of either, but the link has further reduced my esteem for both.
Oh Cicero, shall we parse your pedantic speeches and lose esteem for you?
I said he deserved his fate. Probably. There were many nice places for So-crates to live out his life in exile.
But his poor decision making has been a gift for all mankind.
In the end, Socarates made the right choices and we are all better for them.
But I guess the Thracians would’ve. Prof. Paglia can moove to Thrace too, hardly a fate worse than Hemlock.
And would we have been better off if Plato and Aristotle had self destructed mid-carrer in self righteous sadistic snits?
Not that I don’t appreciate Socrates, but we only know about him because of the efforts of the go-along get along Mr. Plato.
My conclusion? At least wait until you are old and past your prime before provoking your enemies into hacking you to death in your litter. I guess if I really wanted to be nasty I could agree with your turnabout and say that Prof. Paglia is borrowing Cicero’s schtick.
was 70 years old and tired of life. Remember his last words?
The coldness was spreading about as far as his waist when Socrates uncovered his face — for he had covered it up — and said (they were his last words): ‘Crito, we ought to offer a cock to Asclepius. See to it, and don’t forget.’
Those are the words of a man who has tired of life, my friend. He wanted to die.
H’mmm. I think he was willing to die but not wanting to die.
From Crito (Socrates speaking first):
“Do we still hold, or do we not, that we should attach highest value not to living, but to living well? – We do – And that to live well is the same as to live honorably and justly; do we hold that too, or not? – We do. – From what has been agreed let us consider this: would it be just or unjust to leave this place without the consent of the Athenians? If it is just, we shall. If it is not, we shan’t” [Trans. Vlastos]
Adding the oft quoted Socratic observation, from memory, ‘We do not know if death is good or bad as no one has come back to tell us’ I think it is safe to conclude Socrates was more interested in living, or dying, by his understanding of the phrase “to live honorably and justly.”
We can further state Socrates rejected, almost alone if not totally alone of his time, lex talionis* and went further in accepting the dictum ‘it is better to suffer injustice than to do it.’
Now whether we – you, I, the reader, or the person down the block – accept these premises is not material. Socrates accepted them and most of Crito is a logical examination of these propositions as applied to Socrates-in-prison. (I am not going to give a precis of the argument here but will if someone requests.)
Again, in Crito, we have Socrates’ own words that he does not want to die but is willing to die unless he can be dialecticly convinced fleeing prison is morally superior to dying by the decree of the Athenian State.
He is not so convinced and so drinks the hemlock.
Obviously all I’ve done here is a sketch of an argument but methinks it is enough to indicate support for my thesis.
* ‘Law of the Talon’ or state/society sanctioned private vengence.
Twilight of the Idols (excerpts)
The Problem of Socrates
1
Concerning life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is no good. Always and everywhere one has heard the same sound from their mouths — a sound full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness of life, full of resistance to life. Even Socrates said, as he died: “To live — that means to be sick a long time: I owe Asclepius the Savior a rooster.” Even Socrates was tired of it. What does that evidence? What does it evince? Formerly one would have said (– oh, it has been said, and loud enough, and especially by our pessimists): “At least something of all this must be true! The consensus of the sages evidences the truth.” Shall we still talk like that today? May we? “At least something must be sick here,” we retort. These wisest men of all ages — they should first be scrutinized closely. Were they all perhaps shaky on their legs? late? tottery? decadents? Could it be that wisdom appears on earth as a raven, inspired by a little whiff of carrion?
2
This irreverent thought that the great sages are types of decline first occurred to me precisely in a case where it is most strongly opposed by both scholarly and unscholarly prejudice: I recognized Socrates and Plato to be symptoms of degeneration, tools of the Greek dissolution, pseudo-Greek, anti-Greek (Birth of Tragedy, 1872). The consensus of the sages — I comprehended this ever more clearly — proves least of all that they were right in what they agreed on: it shows rather that they themselves, these wisest men, agreed in some physiological respect, and hence adopted the same negative attitude to life — had to adopt it. Judgments, judgments of value, concerning life, for it or against it, can, in the end, never be true: they have value only as symptoms, they are worthy of consideration only as symptoms; in themselves such judgments are stupidities. One must by all means stretch out one’s fingers and make the attempt to grasp this amazing finesse, that the value of life cannot be estimated. Not by the living, for they are an interested party, even a bone of contention, and not judges; not by the dead, for a different reason. For a philosopher to see a problem in the value of life is thus an objection to him, a question mark concerning his wisdom, an un-wisdom. Indeed? All these great wise men — they were not only decadents but not wise at all? But I return to the problem of Socrates.
3
In origin, Socrates belonged to the lowest class: Socrates was plebs. We know, we can still see for ourselves, how ugly he was. But ugliness, in itself an objection, is among the Greeks almost a refutation. Was Socrates a Greek at all? Ugliness is often enough the expression of a development that has been crossed, thwarted by crossing. Or it appears as declining development. The anthropologists among the criminologists tell us that the typical criminal is ugly: monstrum in fronte, monstrum in animo. [“monster in face, monster in soul”] But the criminal is a decadent. Was Socrates a typical criminal? At least that would not be contradicted by the famous judgment of the physiognomist which sounded so offensive to the friends of Socrates. A foreigner who knew about faces once passed through Athens and told Socrates to his face that he was a monstrum — that he harbored in himself all the bad vices and appetites. And Socrates merely answered: “You know me, sir!”
4
Socrates’ decadence is suggested not only by the admitted wantonness and anarchy of his instincts, but also by the hypertrophy of the logical faculty and that barbed malice which distinguishes him. Nor should we forget those auditory hallucinations which, as “the daimonion of Socrates,” have been interpreted religiously. Everything in him is exaggerated, buffo, a caricature; everything is at the same time concealed, ulterior, subterranean. I seek to comprehend what idiosyncrasy begot that Socratic equation of reason, virtue, and happiness: that most bizarre of all equations which, moreover, is opposed to all the instincts of the earlier Greeks.
5
With Socrates, Greek taste changes in favor of dialectics. What really happened there? Above all, a noble taste is thus vanquished; with dialectics the plebs come to the top. Before Socrates, dialectic manners were repudiated in good society: they were considered bad manners, they were compromising. The young were warned against them. Furthermore, all such presentations of one’s reasons were distrusted. Honest things, like honest men, do not carry their reasons in their hands like that. It is indecent to show all five fingers. What must first be proved is worth little. Wherever authority still forms part of good bearing, where one does not give reasons but commands, the dialectician is a kind of buffoon: one laughs at him, one does not take him seriously. Socrates was the buffoon who got himself taken seriously: what really happened there?
6
One chooses dialectic only when one has no other means. One knows that one arouses mistrust with it, that it is not very persuasive. Nothing is easier to erase than a dialectical effect: the experience of every meeting at which there are speeches proves this. It can only be self-defense for those who no longer have other weapons. One must have to enforce one’s right: until one reaches that point, one makes no use of it. The Jews were dialecticians for that reason; Reynard the Fox was one — and Socrates too?
7
Is the irony of Socrates an expression of revolt? Of plebeian ressentiment? Does he, as one oppressed, enjoy his own ferocity in the knife-thrusts of his syllogisms? Does he avenge himself on the noble people whom he fascinates? As a dialectician, one holds a merciless tool in one’s hand; one can become a tyrant by means of it; one compromises those one conquers. The dialectician leaves it to his opponent to prove that he is no idiot: he makes one furious and helpless at the same time. The dialectician renders the intellect of his opponent powerless. Indeed? Is dialectic only a form of revenge in Socrates?
8
I have given to understand how it was that Socrates could repel: it is therefore all the more necessary to explain his fascination. That he discovered a new kind of agon [“contest”], that he became its first fencing master for the noble circles of Athens, is one point. He fascinated by appealing to the agonistic impulse of the Greeks — he introduced a variation into the wrestling match between young men and youths. Socrates was also a great erotic.
9
But Socrates guessed even more. He saw through his noble Athenians; he comprehended that his own case, his idiosyncrasy, was no longer exceptional. The same kind of degeneration was quietly developing everywhere: old Athens was coming to an end. And Socrates understood that all the world needed him — his means, his cure, his personal artifice of self-preservation. Everywhere the instincts were in anarchy everywhere one was within five paces of excess: monstrum in animo was the general danger. “The impulses want to play the tyrant; one must invent a counter-tyrant who is stronger. When the physiognomist had revealed to Socrates who he was — a cave of bad appetites — the great master of irony let slip another word which is the key to his character. “This is true,” he said, “but I mastered them all.” How did Socrates become master over himself? His case was, at bottom, merely the extreme case, only the most striking instance of what was then beginning to be a universal distress: no one was any longer master over himself, the instincts turned against each other. He fascinated, being this extreme case; his awe-inspiring ugliness proclaimed him as such to all who could see: he fascinated, of course, even more as an answer, a solution, an apparent cure of this case.
10
When one finds it necessary to turn reason into a tyrant, as Socrates did, the danger cannot be slight that something else will play the tyrant. Rationality was then hit upon as the savior; neither Socrates nor his “patients” had any choice about being rational: it was de rigeur, it was their last resort. The fanaticism with which all Greek reflection throws itself upon rationality betrays a desperate situation; there was danger, there was but one choice: either to perish or — to be absurdly rational. The moralism of the Greek philosophers from Plato on is pathologically conditioned; so is their esteem of dialectics. Reason = virtue = happiness, that means merely that one must imitate Socrates and counter the dark appetites with a permanent daylight — the daylight of reason. One must be clever, clear, bright at any price: any concession to the instincts, to the unconscious, leads downward.
11
I have given to understand how it was that Socrates fascinated: he seemed to be a physician, a savior. Is it necessary to go on to demonstrate the error in his faith in “rationality at any price”? It is a self-deception on the part of philosophers and moralists if they believe that they are extricating themselves from decadence when they merely wage war against it. Extrication lies beyond their strength: what they choose as a means, as salvation, is itself but another expression of decadence; they change its expression, but they do not get rid of decadence itself. Socrates was a misunderstanding; the whole improvement-morality, including the Christian, was a misunderstanding. The most blinding daylight; rationality at any price; life, bright, cold, cautious, conscious, without instinct, in opposition to the instincts — all this too was a mere disease, another disease, and by no means a return to “virtue,” to “health,” to happiness. To have to fight the instincts — that is the formula of decadence: as long as life is ascending, happiness equals instinct.
12
Did he himself still comprehend this, this most brilliant of all self-outwitters? Was this what he said to himself in the end, in the wisdom of his courage to die? Socrates wanted to die: not Athens, but he himself chose the hemlock; he forced Athens to sentence him. “Socrates is no physician,” he said softly to himself, “here death alone is the physician. Socrates himself has merely been sick a long time.”
Booman I am afraid you are way too intellectual for this site. Or maybe I am way to dumb for this site. I am constantly amazed at the vast fount of knowledge that flows here on the Trib.and not just from you.
Seems like a lot of people better get busy writing their book(s) from what I see on these pages, you especially Booman, so here’s my encouragement for your book outlined last night in your diary, go ahead and finish it, daunting tho it sounds to me. You seem to have a book itching to come out, but the subject may not be what you first intended….
for engaging in my specialty, Ancient Philosophy. It can be an annoying sideline, as the Athenians proved by forcing Socrates to choose exile or hemlock.
I try to keep it off the front-page. Heh.
I was complementing you…So where is the book on Ancient Philosophy, or have you written it already. Perhaps we need a philosophy corner on this site and a metaphysical one as well.
I’m in the trade, too (though not Ancient, much). But I don’t tend to practice it online either. Philosophy isn’t a spectator sport – unless, of course, you’re Pyrrho.
I sent you an email a week or so ago. Did you get it?
Really sorry – didn’t see it until now, as I don’t check that e-mail address very often. Will reply right away.
Don’t apologize! Your comments are enjoyable and thought stimulating. So do not be cynical or stoic but grant us the epicurean delight of your thoughts.
“[T]he hypertrophy of the logical faculty and that barbed malice which distinguishes” Socrates, tells me he was an intellectual sadist with a chip on his shoulder.
Does username “xxxxxxxx” ring a bell?
All you Philosophers should be deported to a Greek island and forced to soak in salt water and suffer the arrows of Apollo upon your ill clad forms. And if that doesn’t learn ya, there’s always Tahiti.
overreacted. They should have just had some foreman from the longshoreman’s union break Socrates’s nose.
Problem solved.
If anybody has ever said anything nicer to me, I can’t remember it.
I am seldom at a loss for words, but I have learned that when I am, it is because none are adequate.
Thank you.
Thanks for this diary. . .the best laugh I had today!
After many years of marriage, I have learned not to speak of these differences in generalities…
I would submit things that my wife and I would admit are different about us… (bear in mind that we both have very advanced degrees)
Well, I don’t know if this list is useful to anyone, and it is by no means exhaustive… maybe I’ll add more to it as I think about it in the future…
But for now, I’ve got to sneak in and finish packing my duffel and carry-on(my wife assumed I finished two days ago, like her) for our flight to Namibia this afternoon. Homeland security has us checking in 3 hours early. Could it be that my wife secretly works with airport security…? Hmmm… At any rate, I better make sure that I’ve got on fresh deodorant and clean underwear for the strip search… I’ll bring back lots of pictures if anybody is interested… er… Namibia, not the strip search…
Yes, please, on the pictures, Bood.
I’d quite like to go to Namibia some time. Interesting place. What are you doing?
He and his family lived there for about 5 years… it’s his favorite place on earth, so Mrs Dood and I will fly to Germany and then there to celebrate his birthday with a group of his friends…
I will be surrounded by Germans speaking German, on a tight schedule, and with a built in tour guide… should be very relaxing… 😉
My sister will be looking out for Mom for the week I’m gone, so I actually do hope to relax a little…
Keep the Bush-fires burning for me!
More Letters From the Earth:
The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in woman’s construction is this: There shall be no limit put upon your intercourse with the other sex sexually, at any time of life.
The law of God, as quite plainly expressed in man’s construction is this: During your entire life you shall be under inflexible limits and restrictions, sexually.
During twenty-three days in every month (in absence of pregnancy) from the time a woman is seven years old till she dies of old age, she is ready for action, and competent. As competent as the candlestick is to receive the candle. Competent every day, competent every night. Also she wants that candle — yearns for it, longs for it, hankers after it, as commanded by the law of God in her heart.
But man is only briefly competent; and only then in the moderate measure applicable to the word in his sex’s case. He is competent from the age of sixteen or seventeen thence-forward for thirty-five years. After fifty his performance is of poor quality, the intervals between are wide, and its satisfactions of no great value to either party; whereas his great-grandmother is as good as new. There is nothing the matter with her plant. Her candlestick is as firm as ever, whereas his candle is increasingly softened and weakened by the weather of age, as the years go by, until at last it can no longer stand, and is mournfully laid to rest in the hope of a blessed resurrection which is never to come.
By the woman’s make, her plant has to be out of service three days in the month, and during a part of her pregnancy. These are times of discomfort, often of suffering. For fair and just compensation she has the high privilege of unlimited adultery all the other days of her life.
That is the law of God, as revealed in her make. What becomes of this high privilege? Does she live in free enjoyment of it? No. Nowhere in the whole world. She is robbed of it everywhere. Who does this? Man. Man’s statutes — if the Bible is the Word of God.
Now there you have a sample of man’s “reasoning powers,” as he calls them. He observes certain facts. For instance, that in all his life he never sees the day that he can satisfy one woman; also, that no woman ever sees the day that she can’t overwork, and defeat, and put out of commission any ten masculine plants that can be put to bed to her.[**] He puts those strikingly suggestive and luminous facts together, and from them draws this astonishing conclusion: The Creator intended the woman to be restricted to one man.
And can and will do..pull up directions on Mapquest then forget them on the kitchen counter. Clean the toilet seat you wrote your name on with no hands. Read directions while putting that new easy to assemble desk that has 1500 nuts and bolts that are marked in the directions A-G but not on the bolt that doesn’t match any of the pictures in the directions that were written by a male engineer. Must I go on?
This was great for a good laugh this morning after reading about all that great progress Bushie is making in Iraq he referred to at his press conference. Now I finally understand what he means by “progress”=Iraqi dead. Disgusting little twit!
Sorry to end on that note folks.Have a great weekend!
6 take directions….LMAO
I’ll hide out in the woods now… ; )
In our domestic scene it is the man who can’t squeeze the tube. Perhaps you could try the method I’ve used to lessen the aggravation of seeing limp tubes. Obtain one large to medium size paper binder clip.
As to farting. I fart. I enjoy those bouts of release. He hates it. Of course when it comes to volume and aroma, hands down he excels……….with a small exception of eating cloves of garlic….then and only then do I surpass his erhm abilities in the farting department. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised he hates it when I consume large quantities of fresh garlic.
Four out of six isn’t bad 🙂
there is a God, and she is honest !! ; )
KUDOS