Sadly people only seem to react to the visceral violence of the wolf attacking the pig, not the more subtle systematic violence of the bourgeois pig leaving the others destitute and starving.
THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.
dude knew who he was and what he was about. today his works are treated as if he wrote in our time. districts want to pull his books because he used the n-word, missing that through the course of the Adventures of Huck Finn he was writing about a man whose society didn’t see him as fully human. but how does the author’s protagonist see him? he loves him. he’s his friend.
the book has been labeled by modern audiences as racist despite in its context being a rebuke of racism. the fact that we read Huckleberry Finn and feel uncomfortable is a demonstration that it succeeded. someday books from our time will have the same effect on audiences.
i think today, Mark Twain would write things inspired by people like Ursula K Le Guin, Becky Chambers, or Sarena Ulibarri
[Half-drunk ramblings with a dozen edits, feel free to ignore]
I don’t know. I think logic and reason (L&R) were intended to make up for our shortcomings. Our minds don’t write down facts, they remember in hazy patterns. L&R were first codified by Descartes (to my knowledge) but used in practice back to the ancient Sumerian engineers if not further. I think the fact that they have been wildly successful despite not being universally adopted just indicates how fundamentally different they are than the naturally workings of the wet brain hardware we evolved across aeons for survival and basic propagation. And while it’s certainly no end unto itself, of course it’s not hard to imagine the additional progress that would come from broader acceptance and application of L&R and the scientific process.
So yeah I wouldn’t call it a hacky patch; there’s genuine value in concrete and self-consistent philosophy. But we have to wrestle against our nature to embrace it.
my dude i enjoy your semi-drunken ramblings. not just because they make me feel better about my high ramblings :3, but because they give me a peek into who you are. so y’know, feel free.
not just older versions. some people have processes bashed and burned out and have had to reprocess around those fucked areas. and the beauty of the human organism is that a lot of them can still get their systems functioning rather well even with the systemic nervous damage. we are alarmingly adaptable
Sadly people only seem to react to the visceral violence of the wolf attacking the pig, not the more subtle systematic violence of the bourgeois pig leaving the others destitute and starving.
That’s one hell of a quote. Thanks for the reminder of what a great thinker Clemens was.
dude knew who he was and what he was about. today his works are treated as if he wrote in our time. districts want to pull his books because he used the n-word, missing that through the course of the Adventures of Huck Finn he was writing about a man whose society didn’t see him as fully human. but how does the author’s protagonist see him? he loves him. he’s his friend.
the book has been labeled by modern audiences as racist despite in its context being a rebuke of racism. the fact that we read Huckleberry Finn and feel uncomfortable is a demonstration that it succeeded. someday books from our time will have the same effect on audiences.
i think today, Mark Twain would write things inspired by people like Ursula K Le Guin, Becky Chambers, or Sarena Ulibarri
People (all of us) are emotional creatures. Logic and reasoning is a hacky patch on top of that, and some people seem to be running older versions.
[Half-drunk ramblings with a dozen edits, feel free to ignore]
I don’t know. I think logic and reason (L&R) were intended to make up for our shortcomings. Our minds don’t write down facts, they remember in hazy patterns. L&R were first codified by Descartes (to my knowledge) but used in practice back to the ancient Sumerian engineers if not further. I think the fact that they have been wildly successful despite not being universally adopted just indicates how fundamentally different they are than the naturally workings of the wet brain hardware we evolved across aeons for survival and basic propagation. And while it’s certainly no end unto itself, of course it’s not hard to imagine the additional progress that would come from broader acceptance and application of L&R and the scientific process.
So yeah I wouldn’t call it a hacky patch; there’s genuine value in concrete and self-consistent philosophy. But we have to wrestle against our nature to embrace it.
my dude i enjoy your semi-drunken ramblings. not just because they make me feel better about my high ramblings :3, but because they give me a peek into who you are. so y’know, feel free.
Haha, thanks amigo 👍
not just older versions. some people have processes bashed and burned out and have had to reprocess around those fucked areas. and the beauty of the human organism is that a lot of them can still get their systems functioning rather well even with the systemic nervous damage. we are alarmingly adaptable