From: "Andy" <as-AT-spelthorne.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 25 Feb 1999 16:36:45 +0000
Subject: Re: The decline of anarchism




> Andy wrote:
> > 
> > > From:          "Dave Coull" <d.y.coull-AT-dundee.ac.uk>
> > 
> > > Carpo asked
> > >
> > > >What the heck is a "didactic?"
> > >
> > > Does it have something to do with "prophylatic" ?
> > > I don't know what that means either  -  not just
> > > kidding, seriously I don't, though I have a pretty
> > > strong suspicion it may be some sort of laxative.
> > > I suppose I ought to look both words up in the dictionary.
> > > Could a didactyic be some sort of laxative used by
> > > the late princess Di in pursuit of anorexic skinniness?
> > >
> > > Okay Andy, you used the word  -  what does it mean?
> > >
> > >
> > > Dave
> > >
> > 
> > I'm not falling for this set up. This is entrapment. If I tell you
> > what didactic  means, you will be able to accuse me of being
> > didactic, and I may be the victim of a smug Holdenesque QED.
> > 
> > On the other hand, maybe I should take my punishment like a man.
> > 
> > Didactic:
> > 
> > from the Greek didasko [teach]
> > 
> > 1intended to instruct especially excessively
> > 2morally instructive
> > 3work containing a political or moral message to which aesthetic
> > considerations are subordinated.
> > 
> > [Collins]
> > 
> > It was a great tradition in Greek and Latin poetry especially, and
> > would have been used by early philosophers with libertarian
> > tendencies [You can find some references in bits of Rocker, but
> > there's a good short chapter in the Peter Marshall book] - we know
> > this from fragments. The Epicureans are occasionally mentioned as
> > pre-cursors of libertarian thought, but often dismissed in comparison
> > to the Cynics or Stoics, but Lucretius c. 60B.C. wrote de rerum
> > natura [on the nature of things] which is a massive didactic poem
> > which rants against superstition and attempts to see the universe in
> > rational scientific terms [atoms and space etc]. This was an early
> > attempt to free personkind from religion and is available as a
> > Penguin Classic.
> > 
> > So I'm didactic as well.
> > 
> > Andy
> > _as
> 
> 	y're right, Andy.  it was a trap and y lose.  as yr
> penalty y must send stlg500 to my e-mail address.  TIA,
> 
> 	old goat.
> 	i judge myself by my intentions;
> 	the world judges me by my actions.
> 	-+ a!+/- a

Can't I do community service instead?

_as