You were silly to take this subject into another thread. Particularly when I outlined the purpose of the Crazy Mothers Club. Support and camaraderie, not attacks. Not a place to argue your philosophy or display your knowldege of Marx and Freud, or even Jewishness.

Men!

I was not sure whether your remarks above were a joke or not. However, I have just read your latest post on “crazy mothers” which seems to have a streak of genuine pain and anguish in it so I assume you wish me to take the comment above seriously, which I will do in the comments to that particular post rather than here, given the inordinate length of thethread.

I have written about this extensively. You may disagree until the cows come home, but I will still be right. All male endeavors not designed to acquire pussy are in fact a futile effort to get even with Mommy for being the boss when he was helpless. It is the male condition and cannot be transcended. Complain as much as you want.

When you can’t get even with Mommy or win the unconditional love to which you believe yourself entitled, you turn to other men for approval. Hence the drive for political power and while we’re at it, for bodybuilding. At this point, you are looking for Daddy or else trying to kill him in your Oedipal fury.

Sorry!

If so, can I dismiss your words “there is no “direct line of totalitarian thought” running from Plato to Hegel to Marx to Stalin, though I am familiar with the argument and can tell you that it is a very superficial one” as mere assertion, even dare I suggest, a superficial assertion, since you offer nothing to support it? Also, may I ask, since it is not clear from your own words, whether you mean that there is *no* totalitarian thought in any of those three philosophers, or, that there *is* but the similarities are simply fortuitous?

When you write “there really is no such thing as a “direct line” of human thought”, am I to assume then that you believe that each philosopher of every age produces his propositions in, as it were, a vacuum with no regard to what has gone before? If that is the case I can understand your assertion that “in modern philosophy departments nobody reads him [Popper] much anymore”. Indeed, if your description of the practice of philosophy is true, there is not much point in any philosopher ever reading any other philosopher, is there?

Your description of Popper as “an old fart” says more about you than about him! He was, and remains, immensely influential in the philosophy of science and some of the greatest minds of today continue the debate between him and Kuhn – but presumably they are not members of “modern philosophy departments”! In his political philosophy, he was a very great defender of liberal democracy, and the book I recommended above which you appear never to have read is a monument to his learning and his analytical abilities. That doesn’t make him right in every respect but then no philosopher ever is!

Sorry to ask you so many questions but the childish smut obscures my view of your reasoned opinions, assuming you have some, that is!

‘SW’,
There you go again – not reading carefully the context! Annemarie asserted that “nobody reads Popper anymore”. I pointed out that Amazon have a huge selection of his works because, one assumes, they are purchased on a regular basis – indeed, you confirm it by reporting that some lady novelist is also featured heavily for precisely the same reason. The content of both these writers is a different argument, the point is that Popper’s writings and thought remains immensely influential in philosophical circles and Annemarie is being silly – again!

As to my use of the word “excrement”, I was being metaphorical. There is a class of mainly faux-intellectuals who delight in a depraved life style, not because it adds to their learning but simply because they enjoy it, being of a depraved nature themselves. Outsiders, lacking the required depravity to join in, nevertheless, experience a second-hand thrill at reading the details and assuming that life lived at the edges somehow imbues the writer with insights not given to those of a more sedate disposition. Utter nonsense, of course, but there’s a fool born every minute – you know, the sort of people who think, say, that Beck – or Burroughs – had anything worthwhile to say about anything! I mean – “what is the bedrock of all male aspiration, if it isn’t cunt and money?” – trite, or what? It leads otherwise sensible people to write things like “isn’t all power as the term is understood by men just a currency by which to acquire more pussy??” Even the faintest knowledge of history would disprove that.

‘Cker’,
You are right, I am often a bore, but you are wrong to suppose me daft. Also, you are wrong to think that if no-one responds to me that I shall go away. Finally, you are wrong yet again to imagine that I hold “contempt for the intelligence of others”. I admire, sometimes to excess, people with great intelligence, I only despise those who pretend to intelligence but who are so irredemably thick they cannot see their own limitations. (Editor’s Warning: any similarity to commenters on this blog is entirely coincidental!)

As to your final paragraph, you are falling into the same bad habits as our hostess, that is, failing to follow the argument in detail. It began with Annemarie asserting that Hitler and Stalin “bashed” intellectuals. I merely corrected her by pointing out that they only “bashed” *certain* intellectuals whilst using others to bolster their political regimes. So when *you* write “Hitler and Stalin were cunning enough to know how to use other’s intellect for their own gain”, we are hand-in-hand in total agreement. Oh dear, dread thought!

Bigger is not better. You may be able inflate the size of “that certain male part” (as the commercial says) but if you fail to understand the difference between quality and quantity you still won’t get laid, big dick or not. BTW, all dicks shrink to impossibly small sizes once a man reaches the age of about eighty or more, if he has the good fortune to live that long.

A madman can borrow the works and ideas of an intellectual but that does not render them intelligent. That is a bit like saying if you go to the symphony
you can be the conductor of the orchestra. Hitler and Stalin were cunning enough to know how to use other’s intellect for their own gain. “Crazy like a fox” comes to mind but that statement does not refer to one’s native intelligence but to one’s cunning and guile.

David -Does one’s appearance on Amazon.com signify that one’s work is being read, or just that one has written a lot of books? I’m afraid to see how many pages are devoted to Danielle Steele, a writer whose prose is bad beyond description. Also, what do you mean by ‘excrement?’ Do you mean fecal matter or just conditions that you deem lowly or perverse?

One other thing: When you say that Mr. Beck left out political power, isn’t all power as the term is understood by men just a currency by which to acquire more pussy??