Liber Me

folly —
folly for to —
for to —
what is the word —
folly from this —
all this —
folly from all this —
given —
folly given all this —
seeing —
folly seeing all this —
this —
what is the word —
this this —
this this here —
all this this here —
folly given all this —
seeing —
folly seeing all this this here —
for to —
what is the word —
see —
glimpse —
seem to glimpse —
need to seem to glimpse —
folly for to need to seem to glimpse —
what —
what is the word —
and where —
folly for to need to seem to glimpse what where —
where —
what is the word —
there —
over there —
away over there —
afar —
afar away over there —
afaint —
afaint afar away over there what —
what —
what is the word —
seeing all this —
all this this —
all this this here —
folly for to see what —
glimpse —
seem to glimpse —
need to seem to glimpse —
afaint afar away over there what —
folly for to need to seem to glimpse afaint afar away over there what —
what —
what is the word —

what is the word

(What Is the Word, Samuel Beckett)

What would it be like to doubt now whether I have two hands? Why can’t I imagine it at all? What would I believe if I didn’t believe that? So far I have no system at all in which this doubt might exist.

I have arrived at the rock bottom of my convictions. And one might almost say that these foundation-walls are carried by the whole house. 

One gives oneself a false picture of doubt. 

My having two hands is, in normal circumstances, certain as anything that I could produce in evidence for it. That is why I am not in the position to take the sight of my hand as evidence for it.

Doesn’t this mean: I shall proceed according to this belief unconditionally, and not let anything confuse me?

But it isn’t just that I believe in this way that I have two hands, but that every reasonable person does. 

At the foundation of well-founded belief lies belief that is not founded.

(On Certainty, 247-253, Ludwig Wittgenstein)

We certainly gave Moses the Book aforetime: but disputes arose therein. Had it not been for a word that went forth before from thy Lord their differences would have been settled between them: but they remained in suspicious disquieting doubt thereon. Whoever works righteousness benefits his own soul; whoever works evil, it is against his own soul: nor is thy Lord ever unjust in the least to His servants. To Him is referred the Knowledge of the Hour of Judgment: He knows all: no date-fruit comes out of its sheath, nor does a female conceive nor bring forth young, but by His Knowledge. The Day that Allah will propound to them the question, “Where are the partners ye attributed to Me?” They will say “We do assure Thee not one of us can bear witness!” The deities they used to invoke aforetime will leave them in the lurch, and they will perceive that they have no way of escape. Man does not weary of asking for good things, but if ill touches him, he gives up all hope and is lost in despair.

(Qu’ran, Sura 41: 44-48, Yusuf Ali translation)

Suppose now that two philosophers, McX and I, differ over ontology. Suppose McX maintains there is something which I maintain there is not. McX can, quite consistently with his own point of view, describe our difference of opinion by saying that I refuse to recognise certain entities. I should protest of course that he is wrong in his formulation of our disagreement, for I maintain that there are no entities, of the kind which he alleges, for me to recognise; but my finding him wrong in his formulation of our disagreement is unimportant, for I am committed to considering him wrong in his ontology anyway. When I try to formulate our difference of opinion, on the other hand, I seem to be in a predicament. I cannot admit that there are some things which McX countenances and I do not, for in admitting that there are such things I should be contradicting my own rejection of them.

It would appear, if this reasoning were sound, that in any ontological dispute the proponent of the negative side suffers the disadvantage of not being able to admit that his opponent disagrees with him. This is the old Platonic riddle of non-being. Non-being must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato’s beard: historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling the edge of Occam’s razor.

(On What There Is, W. V. O. Quine)

And it came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died. And the servants of David feared to tell him that the child was dead: for they said, Behold, while the child was yet alive, we spake unto him, and he would not hearken unto our voice: how will he then vex himself, if we tell him that the child is dead? But when David saw that his servants whispered, David perceived that the child was dead: therefore David said unto his servants, Is the child dead? And they said, He is dead. Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the LORD, and worshipped: then he came to his own house; and when he required, they set bread before him, and he did eat. Then said his servants unto him, What thing is this that thou hast done? thou didst fast and weep for the child, while it was alive; but when the child was dead, thou didst rise and eat bread. And he said, While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether GOD will be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.

(2 Samuel 12: 18 - 23, King James Version)

The chaotic exodus moves out of sight and then out of earshot. Liubov, alone, sits down at the table. Alexander enters the room, sees her, and sits down next to her. As would have been indicated in the previous scene, Alexander has been ageing noticeably since we first saw him only two and a half years earlier. He is half blind, and now also three-quarters spent.

Alexander I myself am a Doctor of Philosophy. We did not chatter about some inner life. Philosophy consists in moderating each life so that many lives will fit together with as much liberty and justice as will keep them together: and not so much as will make them fly apart, when the harm will be the greater. I am not a despot. My son tells me I persecuted you, in the time of your betrothal to Baron Renne. He says I persecuted you. You, my beloved daughter. Can it be true? 

Liubov weeps into his breast. 

How the world must have been changing while I was holding it still. 

(Voyage, act one, The Coast of Utopia, Tom Stoppard)

Neoliberalism is not a foreign conspiracy. Another name for it is ‘the Australian Way’. When Gough Whitlam floated the idea, he called it ‘economic rationalisation’. The movement to end protectionism and privatise government corporations and statutory authorities got underway under Malcolm Fraser and was continued by the Labor governments of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. The liberalising process that required Australian students to enter into debt to finance their education, workers to finance their own pensions and superannuation, and everyone to finance their own housing was much admired by Thatcher who copied it in Britain; Tony Blair and Gordon Brown carried it through to completion. What British governments specially liked about the Australian Way was that, as daily life in the property-owning democracy became a matter of debt and DIY, there could be no effective opposition to government policy. Even the most liberal theorists caution against selling off utilities, but successive Australian governments saw nothing to fear. Whether it was Telstra or the Commonwealth Bank, it was up for sale. There was no way of knowing whether the new owners had the funds or the expertise to run their new acquisitions. The sale was the point. 

(Waiting in Vain, Germaine Greer, Overland, issue 195 winter 2009)

The Sunday Times on 16 February had a similar story about another informer — Martin McGartland from Belfast. In 1991 McGartland was resettled in England, provided with a £53,500 house and £40,000 in a bank account and cast adrift by his MI5 handlers. He is, according to BBC journalist John Ware, “alone, homesick and virtually friendless”. He has been treated with antidepressants and “his neighbours say they have heard him shout at night and seen him tearing down curtains and smashing a door. He says he has nightmares and walks in his sleep.”

In November 1988 O’Callaghan’s depression came to a head. He walked into a pub in London where a former friend from Tralee worked. According to this man, O’Callaghan was “a physical and mental wreck”. When O’Callaghan offered to buy him a drink, the man said, “I don’t want a drink from you.” “Why not?” O’Callaghan asked. “Because you’re a spy,” he told him. The man then walked out. Later that day O’Callaghan handed himself in to the police at Tunbridge Wells. At the time he was wearing only a pair of trousers. He told a bewildered desk sergeant that he had killed two people in Ireland in the 1970s.

(O’Callaghan — The Truth, An Phoblacht, 6 March 1997, author(s) unknown)

It is significant that the only authorities for banality in the Oxford Dictionary are Sala, Saintsbury, Dowden, and Browning; but the volume is dated 1888; and though the word is still used in the same overpowering proportion by literary critics as opposed to other writers, its total use has multiplied a hundredfold since then. Our hope is that the critics may before long feel that it is as banal to talk about banality as it is now felt by most wellbred people to be vulgar to talk about vulgarity.

(The King’s English, chapter 1, H. W. Fowler and F. G. Fowler)