"catherine yronwode"
herb-magic.com> wrote in message
news:4639D9BF.2588989@herb-magic.com...> Tom wrote:
>>
>> "catherine yronwode"
herb-magic.com> wrote in message
>> news:46387D00.97A24C71@herb-magic.com...>>> Tom wrote:
>>>>
>>>> "Joseph Littleshoes"
isp.com> wrote in message
>>>> news:eb549$4637b081$4396fef4$18141@DIALUPUSA.NET...>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> And if you, Tom, feel it is a valid literary or epistemological
>>>>> technique
>>>>> than you become the type of writer i wont bother to read.
>>>>
>>>> That's your choice Exercise it or don't, but it's silly to think that
>>>> you're going to change the way I write by threatening me with
>>>> banishment
>>>> from your screen. That's just another form of punishment, which as
>>>> you
>>>> have
>>>> just stated, is morally wrong.
>>>
>>> False premise: Killfiling you is not a punishment. It is just a change
>>> of focus.
>>
>> But making a public announcement of your intent to killfile is form of
>> punishment. You're attempting to encourage your community to shun an
>> individual because he insulted you. Do you know much about shunning,
>> Cat?
>> I think it's likely that you do.
>
> Sure, i know about shunning, but you made a stupid leap of logic and
> failed to reach the other side of the chasm, there. If you had evidence
> that a bunch of people got together OUTSIDE usenet and said, "let's all
> killfile Tom and tell him so" THAT would be an example of shunning.
That would be one way to do it. Another would be to broadcast your own
desire to shun me personally wihtin Usenet, with the subtle implication that
all "decent" people would do as you are doing. It's just the sort of rank
attempt at crowd manipulation one expects from a person engaged in your line
of business. It's very important to maintain deniability regarding the
claims made for your various products. You have to say things very
carefully or you could run afoul of the laws against false advertising or
practicing medicine without a license. The mere fact that you've stayed in
your line of business for as long as you have demonstrates your skill at
implying things that you might get into trouble by claiming directly.
So what you've suggested is one way a person might attempt to shun someone,
but I just offered another way. There are lots of ways to try to incite a
shunning. You cannot credibly deny your attempts to shun me by selecting an
isolated and rigid definition of the practice of shunning and acting as if
only that precise act can be called shunning. That's too absurd to even
approach credibility.
> That's because shunning is a COMMUNITY act. Telling someone you are
> killfiling them is an INDIVIDUAL act, an act of witnessing, like openly
> declaring oneself to be opposed to racism or to war.
It might be a possible explanation if you had actually stopped trying to
incite arguments with me at fairly regular intervals thereafter. You've
been using your killfile like a shield in a battle. It's not supposed to
end the fighting. It's supposed to keep your enemy's insults and criticisms
from upsetting you while you go about attacking him at will with your own.
Besides, the whole purpose of "witnessing" is an attempt at social
manipulation by a very obvious, even ceremonial, act of public "moral"
behavior, by which it is implied that those who see the witness now know the
true way back to God's Good Graces and should do as that good woman did. In
your case, it was shunning. There's really no point in denying it.
>> "Dog shit! Dog shit! Dog shit!" You know, I think that's about the
>> simplest literary criticism of my body of work that I've ever heard. As
>> the
>> author of the body of Usenet posts in question, I expect and encourage
>> criticism. It means some of my ideas are resonating. Sometimes those
>> resonances are harmonic and sometimes discordant, but that's to be
>> expected.
>> Not everybody in the art gallery likes all the paintings. Art should
>> stir
>> up controversy.
>
> "Art should stir up controversy." Now there's a load of dog shit
> if i ever saw one.
Then it appears we have a controversy over whether or not art should stir up
controversy. Well, whether it should or not, it does.
> The modernist plan for getting millionaires to
> fund dog shit art is built on that premise.
"Piss Christ", for example?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ
It's all part of the "modernist plan". There was a big meeting of all the
heads of modernism back in 1988. They decided that, in order to fleece as
many millionares as they could, thus bringing the world closer to
Armageddon, that they would direct their agent Andres Serrano to take
pictures of a crucifix in a jar of his own urine. This would stir up
controversy and make millions for all of them. Heh. Conspiracy theories...
> Forget 10,000 years
> of art that no one thought should "stir up controversy."
That's the history of advertising art.
> Sucker. You have been conned, hustled, and taken. They rooked you good on
> that one.
Isn't that exactly what you have been telling me I shoud not be sayiong to
your customers?
> When you were young you
> probably liked representationalism, so they mocked you out of
> that until you were actually convinced that up was down, black
> was white, and dog shit was art. You poor fool. You've been
> bamboozled!
"When you were young you probably..." Yes, Doctor Freud? Cat's not only a
mind-reader but a gazer into her crystal ball to discover my hidden past.
But only "probably".
Anybody can play the "probably" game. Here's one for you. When you were
young, your mommy *probably* divorced your real dad, for which you
*probably* never forgave her. Then, she *probably* married some other guy
who you "probably* hated because he was taking the place you were *probably*
reserving for your beloved but long gone daddy. Your adolescent years were
*probably* marked by an increasing level of anger over this usurper's
presence and you *probably* ran away, only to return years later, during the
height of the fad of "recovered memory" of childhood sexual trauma and the
witchhunt mentality that was incited by virtually any unsupported
accusation, *probably* to explode a interactional bomb in the middle of your
own family. Like you, I ain't saying it's so an I ain't sayin' it's not.
I'm just saying that I think it's *probably*. Not that we're talking about
the mathematics of probability here. In this case, "probably" means "a
person might choose to believe". It's statement based on feelings, not on
ratiocination.
> Because art is not SENTIENT you stupid bamboozled mother fucker?
Geez. Look how worked up she's getting,. She's tight as a drum. Just
managing the adrenalin is *probably* the most exercise she's gotten all day.
Taking with me is Cat's way of aerobicizing while never havin to leave her
keyboard. Remember, Cat, the beneft comes from proper aerobic breathing.
http://www.breathing.com/video-ds-bbe2.htm
> Art is something people make.
>
> Get it?
Sure. Shit is also something people make. So it's art. Get it?
> ART IS SOMETHING PEOPLE MAKE -- and what's more, it is something
> they make with spare calories and they do it for one hundred
> thousand reasons: for fun, to attract attention, bcause it's
> pretty, because i heard that the baby will develop faster
> intellectually if the nursery walls are painted with fishes,
> because they can, because they're hoping to sell it, because
> they're trying to regain motor skills after a trauma, because
> certain colours make them happy, because bare walls are so
> gloomy, because they need a cheap birthday present on short
> noice, because everyone i know does it, because my goddess will
> be pleased by it, because they want to stop time by making a
> permanent record of this beautiful horse, because if you're gonna
> build a town hall it might as well look good, because it will
> keep a bit of springtime on the mantlepiece in the dead of
> winter, because we have all this wood around the place anyway,
> because we have all this clay around the place anyway, because we
> have all this metal around the place anyway, because my dad used
> to do it and i dunno why it just seems like he was having fun
> with it so why not give it a go, because sometimes a painting can
> actually improve on nature by enhancng the sunset colours or
> taking the bug-bites out of a rose, because looking at naked
> women while you paint them is a cheap way to look at naked women
> espcially if you take a class in nude drawing down at the
> community art center, because it keeps the children focussed
> during quiet play time and some of them are quite enthralled by
> the paints, becase the texture of the clay is sensual, because
> the colours run so exitingly when you add water, because this way
> people will remember what the president looked like and what he
> stood for, because they want to be famous, because they want to
> impress a girl, because they want to impress a boy, because
> kittens are so cute, because flowers are so beatiful, because i
> just was born with the talent i guess, because i wanted to do
> something a little different, because after we make it we can
> burn it as an offering to the spirits of the dead, because that's
> the way they lure animals to the hunt, because that's the way
> they cure sickness, because its fun to surprise people, because
> it's a job, because it's a better job than working in a factory,
> because it's a better job than being a farmer, because it's
> something that is unique to our village, because it is a
> universal human activity, because i feel happy when i look at
> what i've made...
Damn, Cat. You must have a lot of time on your hands at the moment to
indulge in ruminations like that.
> Think about it.
I would but you plumb tuckered me out with all that thinkin' you just thunk,
Cat.
> If i ever teach you anything, Tom, if i ever reach you with any
> information that can change your life, i hope this is it:
>
> cat yronwode, artist
Ta da! (Curtain)
(Shadowy figure hands her an Oscar)
"You like me! You really *like* me", she says, not quite holding back the
tears.
