no, all philosophers were and are not "crazy", any more than all turn of the previous century feminists were. Those who say they are tend to be lazy thinkers themselves who want an easy excuse to dismiss a complex thinker's output without having to actually address it.
Further, calling Ayn Rand a philosopher is like saying Glenn Beck is one. Her work was about enabling selfishness and shallowness, which is the opposite of "know thyself". Rand was a demagogue and enabler, not a thinker.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
A Quick Note
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12 comments:
I'm sorry, I don't mean to be a jerk. (I especially don't think mental illness is something to be ashamed of. It's just a illness, like any other.)
(I do think Rand wasn't just defending her creepiness. She had some valid ideas among the muck.)
And I'm sure there are many very fine people who are philosophers and just because the last few one I read about had problems does not mean all philosophers are crazy. Or that crazy people become philosophers. Or that being a philosopher drives you crazy.
Did I ever mention that I hate to be in the wrong?
And there will be many more apologies unless you hurry up and forgive me.
I forgive you, but not Foucault.
I think philosophers are mostly crazy, but that's just because people are mostly crazy.
Crazy is the norm. How many normal people do you know? I don't know any. I'm fucking crazy as shit.
I think people's main problem is having this idea that there are perfect people out there; that anyone, held under an electron microscope, would come out normal is pure folly.
Brad, are you a fellow Foucault-hater?
As an aspiring historian of sexuality, I have to talk about him all the time, so the solidarity is a comfort.
Well, great gobs of goo, no offense meant, but really, you guys are just thinking about stuff you've made up in your heads, & that have no relation to anything that I can determine.
One of my best friends has a masters in Phil., & he & I both have legit diagnoses. (Meant to illustrate I've nothing personal against philosophes or the "disturbed," not as proof of anything.)
I just don't get what actual diff. any of it makes. So & so sez this, what's his name types that, & they're going on about stuff that has no meaning in what is demonstrably a random & meaningless universe.
If this world hasn't driven you insane, you're crazy.
M., not all philosophers are or were metaphysicians. Besides which, folk like Plato or Hegel have kind of directly impacted world history in countless and profound ways. The simplistic binary dialectic used by Marxists even today comes from Hegel, for example.
Chad, I don't hate him because he's fun to read, but I do think he's always wrong, which must be an even bigger issue for you considering how badly he screwed up your entire field with wishcasting and revisionism.
no not all philosophers are crazy. that's like saying all bloggers are crazy. if only philosophers live to this day and can get a well-paid job at the atlantic for being a cranky whiner. their ego problem will be solved that way.
but philosophically i don't think foucault is more wrong than hegel. the Marxist binary dialectics screwed china up in all freaking profundity.
I disagree. It is a philosophy, a self congratulating one that posits the bigger a selfish asshole you are the more people will admire you and the riches of the world be laid at your feet.
It's a limited goal, philosophically speaking, and really doesn't work because it fundamentally misunderstands the people. You know now that i think about i could go the other way too. Depens how broadly you want to define philosophy
Brad,
I will admit, as a former English major, he is a lot more readable than Derrida.
Anyway, you nailed it. I know claiming "seeing the emperor has no clothes" status always comes across as supremely arrogant, but I've never understood how what Foucault and his ilk do isn't a "conclusions first, highly selective evidence next" approach. This is why I love to needle my theorist friends by saying that Foucault isn't postmodern, he's pre-Enlightenment/Aristotlean.
Toba Catastrophe Theory explains why we are all crazy. Too few people survived the megavolcano eruption and we got heavily inbred
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