Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1999 05:15:58 +0000 (BST)
From: John Appleby <pyrew-AT-csv.warwick.ac.uk>
Subject: Re:  Re : Re: no filters


On Fri, 8 Jan 1999 Unleesh-AT-aol.com wrote:

> Actually, she and I grokked on many levels.

Lovely verb Unleesh; full of beautiful 1960's resonances. You know that
Manson and the Family were really into _Stranger in a Strange Land_ do
you? 

> I was on my extended sleep-deprivation destratifying derive, and I can tell
> you that all the normal separations don't apply in that state ... 

Or "I was too fucked up to work out what was happening (but I'd never do 
drugs)." 

Before you start whimpering about the glories of sleep deprivation, I've
been there and done that (I'm doing it now: can't you tell by the way
that I have destratified my good humour?) Must be all thost late nights
reading books.

> However, this entire experience on this list has convinced me that she was
> essentially correct, and that phenomenologically, "those who know will
> understand", those who don't know I couldn't even begin to tell you. 

In other words 'those who agree with me know what I am talking about,
those who don't are ignorant bastards'.

Would you think it awfully academic of me if I pointed out that you don't
know what 'phenomenologically' means? 

> If people aren't open to an experience or a style, anything that results
> is not going to be productive but merely scholastic polemics ... 

No the result is going to be a disagreement. Productivity arises from
working through that disagreement rather than dodging questions.

> I am convinced that most of our traditional ideas about intellectual
> forums and debates are structured ways for men to be catty & bitchy with
> each other 

Oh right, so it's my genitals which make me disagree with you is it? What
the hell happened to being open to others and refusing to classify them in
molar categories such as binary oppositions which hide real difference?

I know that i sound 'catty & bitchy' (not very masculine descriptions for
a testosterone loaded academic such as me, I would have thought), but it
seems to be the only thing you respond to.

Still, I can't spend the rest of my life doing this when I could be
chasing crows and romping through the woods, so I'll withdraw from the
playground. 

I'll leave you with just one thought, which comes from _Rock and Roll
Heart_ (a documentary on Lou Reed). One of the dancers with the Velvet
Underground on their first trip to the West Coast: 

"I really hated hippies. Hippies were scum."

All the best

John