Comments on: Intellectualism and the Emperor’s New Clothes

By: Legal Eagle

Legal Eagle — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 06:49:10 +0000

It’s the problem of the lower classes not living up to expectations - they are despised for having “false consciousness”…

Last time I visited her in the UK, my friend said, “Sport is the opiate of the masses, it keeps the lower classes down.”

I said “What a load of absolute bulls**t, just shows how bloody ignorant you really are about the lower classes. If you take sport away, then you really will get a revolution…against you!” She said primly, but with good humour, “I had forgotten how blunt you are in argument.”

Meanwhile, her husband was wetting himself (I suspect he had been wanting to say the idea was BS as well, but was far too polite).

By: Adrien

Adrien — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 04:28:49 +0000

I had a friend who used to work at a place that gave emergency accommodation. There’s a wide range of clients but the most common sort are the lumpenprol white trash types that Fat Pizza pokes regular fun at. One of his co-workers was a Trot.

The Trot was consistently the rudist and most condescending to these people, no contest.

By: Legal Eagle

Legal Eagle — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 03:44:57 +0000

That’s awesome. My best friend at high school was a neo-Marxist. She quit our private school to go to the local comprehensive. She lasted all of a week, because the lower classes weren’t actually preoccupied with class struggle, but more with the kind of things she thought of as “low-brow”. She had done a great grandstand exit; we were all very tactful and “English” when she returned a week later, and pretended nothing had happened.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 03:09:36 +0000

John G.

Yes I have read it. The joke at #22 comes from Monty Python’s Flying Circus. There’s a quiz show in which Marx, Mao and Che are competing. Sample:

Presenter: The development of the industrial proletariat is conditioned by what other development?

Karl: The development of the industrial bourgeoisie.

(applause)

Presenter: Yes, yes, it is indeed. You’re on your way to the lounge suite, Karl. Question number two. The struggle of class against class is a what struggle? A what struggle?

Karl: A political struggle.

(Tumultuous applause.)

Presenter: Yes, yes! One final question Karl and the beautiful lounge suite will be yours… Are you going to have a go? (Karl nods) You’re a brave man. Karl Marx, your final question, who won the Cup Final in 1949?

Karl: The workers’ control of the means of production? The struggle of the urban proletariat?

Presenter: No. It was in fact, Wolverhampton Wanderers who beat Leicester 3-1.

It’s always two questions viz socialist theory and then one viz what the working class actually pays attention to (ie football). As I recall it ends with Marx and Che sprung pashing.

By: John Greenfield

John Greenfield — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:30:41 +0000

Adrien

While I have no doubt post #22 was very witty and apt, I have no clue what it means! Also, have you read the Sokal (and some French dude) book? I believe it has been translated into English.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:41:11 +0000

Sure. Appreciated. Might take me a while. Probably something to do with IP issues. That’s what I was going to be.

By: skepticlawyer

skepticlawyer — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:29:55 +0000

Adrien, if you’re interested in doing the odd guest post over here, let me know. We’re getting guest writers to contribute every now and then if they feel they’ve got something interesting to say.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:22:57 +0000

RE #22 I should add that I likewise thank Allah that I took my Arts degree from people who realised what a marketable commodity was.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:22:01 +0000

The poor old Marxists - comme moi - had been shown the door long ago.

it’s your own faults. You didn’t realize that Coventry City had never won the FA Cup final.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:18:03 +0000

Ther’ve been a series of books and essays written around the and from the Sokal hoax. One by Sokal himself. There’s a myriad of interesting questions viz the Humanities in the age of science. I’ve got 3 essays on the Cultural Studies thing pending and SL’s prodding last week has made me vow to finish them. At least one, I hope by Sunday.

One’s on this Emperor’s New Clothes question, another on the use of Truth in the hunanities. This latter is different in the Humanities than in the Sciences and desirably so I;d say as this recent stoush re free will shows. Of course the Trendy Humanities in their efforts to both reject and ape science at the same time have taken it to comical extremes.

For myself I just thank Allah that my lot realised that composing fabulously ornate tripe such as quoted at #17 is not a marketable commodity.