A quick post to share a joke. Well not really a joke, more of an acid wit. French philosopher Alain Badiou has been called many things during his long and lustrous life, a lot of them bad. Some people seem to insist, for example, that the man is anti-Semite. Zizek lovingly repeats that he and Badiou are both Stalinists (Badiou, of course, is Maoist). I seem to remember that, not too long ago, a Danish journalist recounting French contemporary political thinking called him dangerous and mad. Ah, well… “A beloved child has many names” as we say in Denmark. But to call Badiou names is, I think, a most marvelous thing. Not that he deserves it, but because he tends to answer these preposterous accusations with such humorous force as to make any stand up comedian blush with envy.
I just now stumbled upon the following gem of an aggressive defense:
“J’aime les grandes mĂ©taphores venues de la religion : Miracle, Grâce, Salut, Corps Glorieux, Conversion… On a Ă©videmment conclu de ce goĂ»t que ma philosophie Ă©tait un christianisme dĂ©guisĂ©. Le livre sur saint Paul que j’ai publiĂ© en 1997 aux PUF n’a pas arrangĂ© les choses. Ă€ tout prendre, j’aime mieux ĂŞtre un athĂ©e rĂ©volutionnaire cachĂ© sous une langue religieuse qu’un “dĂ©mocrate” occidental persĂ©cuteur de musulman(e)s dĂ©guisĂ© en fĂ©ministe laĂŻque.” (Baidou: Second manifeste pour la philosophie note 4)
In case your French is a bit rusty, here is a rusty translation:
“I love the great religious metaphors: Miracle, Grace, Salvation, Glorious Body, Conversion… Obviously, someone concluded from this preference that my philosophy was disguised christianity. The book on Saint Paul, which I published in 1997 at PUF, didn’t help the matter. All considered, I would rather be a revolutionary atheist hidden behind a religious vernacular than an occidental “democrat” persecuting muslims disguised as a secular feminist.”
You almost want to high-five your buddy and chest bump your pal shouting “Snap! Them mo-fo’s got pwned!,” don’t you?
21
Mar 09
Anything but a fatal blow (usually) requires a ready defense
As a last installment (promised!) in our whole “commentary on the spectacular horrors of commentary”-debacle (now a trilogy with parts one and two already out) we should take a quick look at the ground values, not of bloggery as such, but of this our own particular verbal version of loose-stooled effluent. And as the greek word in the header (to the right of the backslash, not the hebrew one to the left) cries out in an embarrassingly high brow fashion, there is only one ground value: War!
So, the idea of this fecal accumulation was to have a place through which to channel the pile of bile that rises within us all when encountering that which is too high, too low, too in the middle, as well as that which just generally rubs us the wrong way.
An example: When some semi-celeb on the front page of a wholly disgraceful newspaper states “I am good in bed”, you must be made of sturdier stuff than me to avoid shaking your fists at the world, shouting insults and death threats at all who would even think of finding such a journalistic abomination worthy of print. Another one: The former princess Alexandra (Denmark), once visited a very hot country, somewhere with elephants, I forget… A photo of this young lady in a sweat stained t-shirt appeared on the front page of one of the weekly attacks on the minds of the already challenged with the following title “The Princess’ Hot Flashes”. I mean, really!
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