Marvel vs DC

I will watch Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with President Obama eventually.  

I dread it, I have to be in a v good cheerful and forgiving mood to see it and come to it with a more neutral disposition, somehow temporarily deactivating my prejudice about politicians making lobster salad of the office ppl gave them the legitimacy to occupy, especially if they're going to behave like they're celebrities instead of civil servants. 

Y'knowhat I expect at the moment when I think of it?  For Jerry to be too pally with Obama and for Obama to erroneously interpret that as a good thing. It's not a good thing.  A president is not supposed to be 'pals' with anyone in public.  But I realize this makes my butt look like an archeological finding.

And pluswhich that train has long sailed since President Obama in his 2nd mandate played friendly basketball with Batman and Spiderman -- or should I say Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker? -- in a fundraiser for the Democratic Party.  

It's better than taking money from corporations, but by comparison with how Bernie Sanders' campaign is being funded ? It's a joke -- or should I say Joker? --  since Sanders has so far collected more money from individual donors only, averaging $30 each (as of 23, 24 or 26, I can't quite remember which, December, 2015 according to MSNBBCNN), than Obama did in his last campaign, even accepting corporate 'packages' (previously known on 24 as bribes). 

There is one thing that still gives me reason to suspend judgment:  Obama is, after all, a professional politician, so even if Jerry Seinfeld behaves like they're formal equals, the truth is Obama will most likely be 411 steps ahead.   Not that I think Jerry would be out to 'catch' Obama in anything since it is an entertainment show.  

Yet this is precisely the problem.  The informal quality of such 'interviews' tends to give bad ideas to the less astute politician.  Relax?  And all Hell hits Pandora's fan mailbox. 

Be that as it may, sooner or later I'll bite the 30 pieces of SilverBulletSpoons I wasn't born with, slay this vampiric dragon hanging over all our mixed metaphoric heads once and for all time, and kiss this episode of CCgC & of historic shame on the cheek before the cock crows thrice.  

Then I'll sit down and write a truly bombastic paragraph about it.

Given the superhero smorgasbord above, it could reasonably start:

"Once upon a time, a Marvel comic walked into a White House and saw a professional DC comic..."

Can I Borrow A Melody?

Al's well Or is it?

Chapter One

A SQUAT grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State's motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY.

The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards the north. Cold for all the summer beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself, a harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay figure, some pallid shape of academic goose-flesh, but finding only the glass and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory. Wintriness responded to wintriness. The overalls of the workers were white, their hands gloved with a pale corpse-coloured rubber. The light was frozen, dead, a ghost. Only from the yellow barrels of the microscopes did it borrow a certain rich and living substance, lying along the polished tubes like butter, streak after luscious streak in long recession down the work tables.

Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, 1931

Chapter 1

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.

The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. It was no use trying the lift. Even at the best of times it was seldom working, and at present the electric current was cut off during daylight hours. It was part of the economy drive in preparation for Hate Week. The flat was seven flights up, and Winston, who was thirty-nine and had a varicose ulcer above his right ankle, went slowly, resting several times on the way. On each landing, opposite the lift-shaft, the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran.

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-four, 1949

AncesTree

Here, I'd like to propose a very simple modification in how people look at ancestry and heritage, at culture, at ethnicity.  

Instead of spending countless weeks/months and quite a bit of money and energy thinking about one's ancestors--not parents or grandparents, but those we have not met-- and narrowing down their accomplishments, contributions, story, movements, etc, I reckon it'd be more interesting and more relevant to think about language.

How did that (or those) generation(s) speak?  Which modifications did they bring to language, dialects, accents?  Which slang words did they use, if any?  Did they write letters? If so, is the handwriting still legible?  

Which branch(es) of this tree would have house them, if any?

Tree of Languages; One Common Ancestor: Proto-Indo European

The Word According to Tom Wolfe: Chapter 3 of 5

Darwin, Marx, Freud, (E.O.) Wilson? Tom Wolfe says the common thread there is the power of the word — of ideas that change human history in large and obvious ways. 


The Word According to Tom Wolfe: Chapter 4 of 5
Tom Wolfe says evolution ended when man learned to speak — with the dawn ofhomo loquax. Where status for the beast of the field is determined by power, for man it is determined in innumerable ways because of language. And it is language that gives us rational thought. Wolfe asks, “Have you ever see an animal shrug?” 

Finally, something different from Homo sapiensapiens!

Invidia

Gericault, Portrait of a Woman Suffering from Obsessive Envy c. 1822

"What Nietzsche and Freud share is the idea that justice as equality is founded on envy--on the envy of the Other who has what we do not have, and who enjoys it. The demand for justice is thus ultimately the demand that the excessive enjoyment of the Other should be curtailed so that everyone's access to enjoyment is equal." 

Žižek, Violence (Picador, 2008), p. 89


Yes I'm happy with this definition of envy, and think it isn't talked about enough. However, it needs to be contrasted with jealousy, so all the by-products of one and of the other can be exposed. Invidia bifurcates.  We look at the root of the word in Latin and it quickly becomes apparent that it stems from another word.  Going backwards:  invidia from invedere (regard maliciously), from in- (=into) + videre (= to see).  


I read further.

"An evil person is thus not an egotist, 'thinking only about his own interests.' A true egotist is too busy taking care of his own good to have time to cause misfortune to others. The primary vice of a bad person is precisely that he is more preoccupied with others than with himself."

Žižek, Violence (Picador, 2008), p. 92


True.  This point is v important and ppl often neglect the implications of true egotism, or selfishness. Then:

"Here is why egalitarianism itself should never be accepted at its face value: the notion (and practice) of egalitarian justice, insofar as it is sustained by envy, relies on the inversion of the standard renunciation accomplished to benefit others: 'I am ready to renounce it, so that others will (also) NOT be able to have it!' Far from being opposed to the spirit of sacrifice, evil here emerges as the very spirit of sacrifice, ready to ignore one's own well being--if, through my sacrifice, I can deprive the Other of his enjoyment..."

Žižek, Violence (Picador, 2008), p. 92


But Slavoj, aren't you dodging v important factors?  Two, off the top of my head.  Namely:


1) The possibility egalitarianism and enjoyment can be levelled up. I don't deny the very real fact that if there are two ppl and one of them is cheerful and the other isn't, it gets complicated to see how both can be equally joyful, given the positive energy will come from one individual and the other will absorb it, therefore each person ends up with less energy than existed before it was divided in two; however, it is also possible that multiplication will arise from the division.  Now, with more positive energy than he had at the beginning of the equation, SadIndividual may turn into CheerfulIndividual and start to produce his own positive energy, enough to give some back to the person who was already joyful, increasing the product.  It's a possible interpretation of the Parable of the Talents, no?  Multiply the initial natural resource, and;


2) It is problematic to isolate envy without contrasting it to jealousy, because one crucial element gets lost in the analysis of only one concept.
I agree envy is characterized primarily by not only the desire to have a quality or a thing the Other possesses but also, and, more importantly, by wanting to take it away from the Other so that no one has it in the end.  "If I can't have it, I don't want you to have it either."  It's a framework where everyone loses.
However, the missing element must be inserted into the equation precisely because I believe that once it is brought to light, the likelihood envy will turn into jealousy is encouraging.


If one starts from the premise that jealousy is characterized by the desire to possess something one doesn't yet have, without the added factor of wanting the Other to lose it, one reaches the conclusion that the dispossessed may end up achieving the object of his covetous thoughts.  Coveting isn't necessarily bad-- it may become negative if one crosses the line into envy.


Envious ppl could experience a positive transition into jealousy if they considered the following:


a) If the object of my envy loses what it possesses, the world becomes poorer and poorer, until, in the end, if my wishes are granted, I won't even have anything to be envious of, since no one will have anything worthy of my envy;


b) I, too, can have what I envy, within reason, if I apply myself and take the paths which lead to it;


c) Envy is stupid: what the envious person fails to perceive is that he who observes a quality has the perspicacity, the sensibility, the intelligence, the emotional resources to look at it and make an assessment of it, to see it, to value it for what it is.  The reader, the spectator, the listener is as responsible for the elevation or recognition of something as the person who created it or has it.  If I look at Magritte and see nothing, I have no reason at all to be jealous/envious.  If I see how stupendous it is, some of the credit goes to me, too!  Magritte wouldn't exist if no one could see his talent, and appreciate his art.  So envious ppl only need think this through.  They're underestimating their own capacity to identify quality, beauty, value.


Slavoj, I'd like to know what you'd say to this, but I don't think you read my blog.  I know you wouldn't be envious, though. 

The Funny One

I've recently observed how there always seems to be one person in a couple who's The Funny One while the other provides the necessary supporting role. More often than not, the man is the funny one. What happens though when the couple in question is of the same-sex variety? There is still a funny one but the gender is no longer a factor.

That men are funnier than women generally speaking is widely known, feminists' complaints and political correctness notwithstanding.

Apparently, there are biological/evolutionary reasons for this. Being completely scientifically illiterate I am at the mercy of documentaries and articles which discuss this (not many), as well as commentators' and intellektchuls' ... well, comments. (For example, Christopher Hitchens wrote a piece on the subject which got him into a little trouble with the Thought Police, but then he is used to that-- and sometimes deserves it.) So the explanation for this difference between men and women goes something like this: the man tries his hardest to make a woman laugh because if she does she signals physically that she is likely to say yes to him, thereby increasing his chances of spreading his DNA.

Some of the signs include: throwing head back, showing back teeth, touching his arm/shoulder/knee, showing palm of hand. These are interesting because they act on the man's "biological subconscious" or whatever it's called by suggesting the way a woman looks during sex (when he presumably can see her back teeth...I'll skip details. You get the picture.)

So then what is the biological/evolutionary role of humour between gay people? In other words, the biological signals being necessarily adjusted to procreation, how come gay men have retained their sense of humour given they're not trying to attract women? I'm almost sure I'm being a little obtuse here, given that gays aren't a race and therefore do not pass on their biological inheritance, but how about the sociological aspects? Surely their 'biological subconscious' knows that what attracts men isn't necessarily (biologically) someone who can make them laugh?

Is there an overriding mechanism or learned behaviour which trumps sexual orientation and circumvents evolutionary and biological imperatives?

Why does Donald Duck wear a towel around his waist when he comes out of the shower but goes commando the rest of the time