on going B- grade stuff

   
... Oedipus destroyed his own powers of vision ... he saw too
much ... that was his problem ...

To: heraclitussociety@yahoogroups.com
From: "Philip Talbot" <philtal_uk@yahoo.com>  Add to Address Book
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 10:50:35 -0000
Subject: [Heraclitus Society] (unknown)
   
... Oedipus destroyed his own powers of vision ... he saw too
much ... otherwise ... that was his problem ...

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[Problem of selection ... coz most of this is stuff not worth remembering ... occasionally, however, out of the swampy piles of crap, something interesting emerges ...]

 To: heraclitussociety@yahoogroups.com
From: "Philip Talbot" <philtal_uk@yahoo.com>  Add to Address Book
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 22:12:22 -0000
Subject: [Heraclitus Society] Giving the game away? ...
   
Giving the game away ...
As I have said before, I regard this space as virtual open notebook.
I am not really sure why I use it really.
Intentionality is a real mystery ... we tend to 'justify' our actions
rather than really 'explain' them.
Notebooks are rough and tumble, mix-up and jumble, messy sorts of
things.  And their contents are often quite ugly in various ways. 
People do seem to like to peep into other people's notebooks - often
in the hope of finding something revolting or disturbing or
ridiculous or in some other way unsavoury. Perhaps such peeping is a
bit like lifting up stones in order to be disgusted but strangely
delighted by the usually hidden creepy crawlies and other oddities
that are revealed. 
And when people invade your private spaces without telling you, they
have right to be offended by what they find there.  Nor should they
rush to conclusions - eg a momentary outburst of spleen is not a
considered and 'for all time' final judgement [although having it
written down in a semi-permanent form can make it seem so,
admittedly].
Most of this stuff is only sketchy momentary crap really. And
sometimes I am very drunk when I fill this space with words. I am
sober tonight, as it happens.
Once upon a time she peeped into one of my more truly private
notebooks, kept in a personal drawer.  I was out of the house at the
time. In the notebook, along with a lot of other stuff, there were a
few sentences briefly describing an erotic dream I had had while
sleeping alongside her.  The 'dream-girl' had not been her, of
course. [This was in fact the only appearance that particular 'dream-
girl' was ever to make in my dreams.  It was  a sort of one-night
stand.]  I had written it down mostly because I was puzzled by it, I
think - though it must also have been a sort of confession.
Anyway, naturally enough, after invading my private spaces, she later
shrieked out the sugggestion that it had been a great act
of 'deliberate' cruelty by me, towards her, to write those sex dream
notes and then put the private notebook away in a personal
drawer ... 'knowing' that, when I was out of the house, she would
open that drawer, take out that notebook and read the 'dream-girl'
notes.  She probably had a point.  And it was part of the evidence
she piled up against me as she moved towards her conclusion that my
nature was 'fundamentally twisted'.
[I think she was also troubled that she had not been tuned into the
dream while it was actually happening - we did share dreams,
literally, and in many postitive ways; but she was also very good
at 'thought-policing' it has to be said {I am still in the process of
rounding up the many 'spooks' she left behind in my consciousness,
truth be told!}]
And of course I read her private notebooks too - when she carefully
left them lying around close to my hand.  They were actually a great
disappointment, as I recall - the crueller, more revolting and
grossly personally insulting and upsetting stuff was in the letters
she sent directly to me!
...
Restarting sort of sub-Miltonically ...
[Ref txt Samson Agonistes]
A little onwards lend your guiding hand to those still hesitent near-
blind steps of mine though the darkness. And a little further on
still. But is it merely for more mirey endurance? Or is it possible
to have real hopes of getting out of the dark mire and into a better
place that has some chance of birghtness in and around it?  There I
might find a truer home, or if not that at least a place to rest more
properly - were some rearrangment to relieve me from my present
senseless seeming toiling task.  Too servile I have become to those
who do not respectfully use the power that they have over me.  Daily,
in my isolated share of this common prison, in chains designed by
self and others, I scarecely freely draw enough breath and real
sustenance to last another day of unwholesome unhomesomeness ...
Not really eyeless in Gaza am I. Downfallen, dumbeddown, dupedamned,
dogended, devalued, demeaned, drudged.  Why aye!  Legless in Gazza-
land I lie.
The fates have not been as kindly as they might have been.  And even
if, surely enough, others suffer more than me, that is no relief
really, and is really part of my own suffering.
Mustn't grumble though ...

...
Re realistic role re-modelling ...
In Sentimental Education, Flaubert [northern provincial reclusive
eccentric bachelor of arts ...]
set out to wrtie the 'moral history' of his generation.  It is a work
based on personal experiences but not strictly autobiographical. It
stretches the literal truth, but remains fact-based and within the
bounds of general probability.  Great care is taken to authenticate
actual historical detail.  The authorial 'voice' is 'detached' and
ironic. It is 'about' love and passion in changing times. 
The 'actions' represented are strangely and ambiguously passive. A
sort of hope flows through the work, but it seems to represent the
defeat of idealism.  Democrats are not flatteringly represented, but
autocrats get a hammering.  It mocks human ignorance and stupidity
generally and particularly.  It celebrates quirky individuality and
small acts of love and kindness and fellow-feeling.  Flaubert was
pessimistic about the possibility of 'progress'.  He
thought 'progress' would only be possible when/ if more perople
learned how to live more honestly and open-mindedly, without
absolutist dogmatic beliefs - which most people appeared reluctant to
do.
Flaubert: 'You're always having deal with arseholes, being lied to,
deceived, slandered and ridiculed, but that is to be expected, and
you thank heaven when you meet exceptions.  That's why I never forget
the tiniest scrap of happiness that comes my way from friendly
gestures, or even a smile.'
Clearly, Flaubert's 'sentimental' education is not a sloppy/soppy
study.
As for its underlying philosophy: 'I don't know what the two
words 'mind' and 'matter' mean. Nobody has any direct experience of
either.  Maybe they're two abstractions created by 'intelligence'? 
In brief, I consider 'materialism' and 'spiritualism' both equally
absurd assumptions.' [Spinoza was his favourite philosopher, by the
way.]
He was a 'realist', in a word.

To: heraclitussociety@yahoogroups.com
From: "Philip Talbot" <philtal_uk@yahoo.com>  Add to Address Book
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 23:50:41 -0000
Subject: [Heraclitus Society] Re: Giving the game away? ...
   
> He was a 'realist', in a word.
...
Too much 'understanding' has been expected of me [note passive voice].
And I have very little 'understanding' really.
But, anyway, that is more or less incidental, because I am more or
less finished anyway.
I have used up too many of my 'recoveries' already, and cannot have
many left. [Each of us has only a limited number of 'recoveries' in
us.] I have visited 'the void' too often, in other words.
Anyway.
So it goes.
Makes no difference really anyway.
Catatonia beckons soon enough, I reckon.
No one is to blame really.
But that folks, anyway, for your kindly disregards.
And you are well advized, I think, to protect yourselves - because,
come to 'the crunch' every else will [even though self-protection is
no protetion really]
...
Anyway ...
...
Meanwhile, I will continue to go on, of course, for the 'sake'
of 'amusement', or whatever, until some 'bitter' solitary end.
...
One hears public discourse by the supposedly 'authoritative', and one
often cannot believe how close it is to mere gibberish - one would at
least expect some semblance to sense. 
There we had the 'chairperson' of the British Labour Party today ...
for example ... saying that the invasion of Iraq by US-UK forces
was 'legal' ... 'because' ... the British prime mininster said it was
legal.
Sorry folks, but legality is not whatever some 'authority' figure
decides it is.  There are previously established standards of legal
conduct.  You cannot just make them up as you go along.  If you do
something that breaches an established standard of legality, then it
is illegal.
That is legally and justly the way it goes.
Also today I heard several 'knowing' [ho ho ho lol] voices suggesting
that it was somehow 'childish' for people to object to the FACT
British and American 'intelligence' serices had been intercepting
PRIVATE telephone conversations of the Secretary General of the
United Nations - prior to the ILLEGAL US-Uk invasion of Iraq. 
The 'adult thinking' [please note a slight trace of irony in that
phrase] behind this seemed to be something like this: ... this is
just the way of things in the present world, to object to it
is 'childish'.
Well boys and girls, you are well advized that if the 'adults' are
fucking things up in disgraceful ways, then you should not admire and
copy their ways.
It is in fact highly infantile to be playing childish 'peek a boo
games' when one is supposedly a responsible adult in a position of
power - especially when one has power of life and death over others. 
Real adults - even if they seem somewhat adolescent - see through the
reality avoidances of such behaviour patterns.
Anyone who thinks it is in any way justifiable to be bugging the
private telephone conversations of the Secretary General of the
United Nations IS NO ADULT.
It is a matter of fact that the British Prime Minister had the power
to STOP such bugging - truth be told it probably started before he
came to power.  He chose not to do that.
Watching Tony Blair at his 'open' press conference this week - when
the issue of the peek-a-boo games played between himself,
British 'intelligence' and the Secretary General of the United
Nations, came out into the open - was rather like watching a teenage
adolescent male who had been caught wanking.  [They deny the reality
of what they have been up to, don't they?!]
Tossers, like those in power now - openly and more covertly - are
truly a pathetic bunch, aren't they now?! ...
But to suggest as much is just 'childish' nonsense of course is it
not now?
p.s. Before the 'sisterhood' gets all too 'virtuous' ... if Ms Short
and Co. really think that they are so much more 'virtuous' than Mr
Blair ... then ... they are mistaken ...
p.ps. Why is it that I am able to write such 'open' notes as
these ... while the 'knowing' Ms CAEO'K and other members of
the 'sisterhood' do not seem to be ... ? ...

To: heraclitussociety@yahoogroups.com
From: "Philip Talbot" <philtal_uk@yahoo.com>  Add to Address Book
Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 01:05:00 -0000
Subject: [Heraclitus Society] Re: Giving the game away? ...
   
... on the day that he retired, the shopkeeper who had been selling
me cigarettes for years suggested that it might be a good idea if I
gave up smoking 'for the sake of my health' ...
... in other words: ... he had profited himself at my expense and now
could pretend to care about my well-being, in other words ...
...
... that is the sort of shitbag specimen of 'humanity' I have been
dealing with for most of my life ...
...
... I hate the fucking lot of you ...
... well that is what you want to hear, isn't it ? ... with such
statements in mind you can dismiss me as of 'fundamentally twisted'
nature ... is not that so ... ? ...
... fuck off you cunts and wankers ...

To: heraclitussociety@yahoogroups.com
From: "Philip Talbot" <philtal_uk@yahoo.com>  Add to Address Book
Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 20:17:57 -0000
Subject: [Heraclitus Society] Re: Giving the game away? ...
   
Representatives of shark.com.incorp take many forms. They can be very
pleasant and plausible sounding, for example, like the representative
of Durham.University.U.K.Incorporated, who 'phone me this afternoon
begging for money while pretending to herself and me that she was
doing something else.  Personally, after considered reflection, I
could not recommend that particular 'cash strapped' [trace of irony
there] 'university' to anyone.  The quality of its 'services' are
poor.  And the quality of its graduates is notoriously bad.  they
tend to be self-serving and unreliable, experience suggests.  They
are know above all else for their untrustworthiness.
Take Durham graduate Ms Katherine Gun, for example.  She was employed
by the British government in relatively good faith as a translator
for the 'security' services.  She signed the Official Secrets Act. 
When you take on such a job you know you are going to be asked to do
some quite 'dodgy' things.  Her employers had a right to expect
loyalty from her.  If you cannot trust your 'own' people, then who
can you trust. A world without any sort of trust is an entirely
paranoid world.  Anyway, while still taking taxpayers' money for her
work, Ms gun 'leaked' details of an American request for the
British 'security' services to get involved in 'dirty tricks' at the
United Nations prior to the illegal U.S.-U.K.-led attack on Iraq. 
The result was a diplomatic 'furore'.  A 'mole hunt' was launched
within the 'security services' and Ms Gun eventually owned up to
being the source of the 'leak'. Only then was her employment ended. 
i say this without much irony: digging out the 'dirty tricks' of
the 'security' services should be left to those of us who disapprove
of most of their mostly dubious modes of operation on principle.  To
take the money for working for the 'security' services and then to
betray trust while still doing so does seem an act involving some
essential bad faith.
p.s. Regular readers of this irregular space might already have some
awareness that my ethical ideas are somewhat more complex then 'them
bad, us good'.  And I allow for ambiguity and apparent contradiction -
because that is just the way it goes, it seems to me.  So, for
example, I can disapprove on principle of the sort of habitual 'dirty
tricks' that is part and parcel of the work of the 'security'
services, but nevertheless also disapprove of the breach of trust by
Ms Gun that brought details of such 'dirty tricks' out into the
open.  Loyalty should count for something, in other words.
p.ps. Personal experience has taught me not to trust Durham
University [Incorp.] graduates with names sounding like 'Katharine'. 
Of course it is wholly irrational to tar all 'Katharines' with the
same brush.  But there are some notable parallels between Ms Gun's
betrayals of trust and those of Ms O'Kelly.
p.pps. Read your original reference texts very carefully, boys and
girls.  For this group, the core texts are the fragments of
Heraclitus.  You should not expect to encounter clear-cut 'simples'
when visiting a website bearing the name of that most 'difficult' of
Greek philosophers. [And don't mistake me for a completely
naive 'adolescent' fool!]