Vampires, zombies, and nightmares are good and useful things? Maybe it’s restful for our brains to engage in a world of fight or flight where attention can be paid to large and largely simple fictional forces? We spend so much of our lives parsing and comparing endlessly intricate arguments and experiences, so a frightening world that operates on a simple binary of right vs. wrong provides relief? A sanctuary away from our norm? [READ MORE]
Animality
PDP (Public Displays of Pain)
The world generally agrees that anything more than momentary PDA goes against decorum, citing the public interest and the risk of distracting drivers or other operators of heavy machinery, etc. But, how should we feel about PDP, public displays of pain? [READ MORE]
Humanist Homily Homunculus
In the beginning, I wanted to call the book I’m working on Cogitate instead of Generation Special.
When I was in London for graduate school my mother made me go to church and the sermon was about misdirected charity. Basically, in the 1800s in London (and presumably elsewhere) there were public baths. Above the public baths, (the sermonizer claimed that) some rich English people had inscribed “COGITATE, COGITATE, COGITATE” because poor people were poor because of some moral failing that would only be redeemed through reflection. So, those of us made poor, desperate, etc. because no one wants to hire us because of the economy and the fact that no one prohibited us from majoring in philosophy, should also cogitate? But, not because we are to blame for our sorry state. Definitely not that. And then, someone said cogitate sounded a lot like masturbate, which I counted as a plus. Continue reading
