Re: Try Not To Dance

1

From the comments on the Russell video: "this man was more evil than Hitler. do some research."


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:02 AM
horizontal rule
2

Before we kill all the lawyers, shouldn't we start with the philosophers? Or at least the philosophy students? Or maybe just students? I stopped watching the Derrida video 5 seconds into the first wo/man's question because I could see another fifteen seconds of preening coming.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:06 AM
horizontal rule
3

I told you to skip to 5:05 for a reason. And yes, we know you didn't go through a period of earnest care for your fellow man, you Republican.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:08 AM
horizontal rule
4

Good chunks of the Chomsky/Foucault debate are also on YouTube.


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:10 AM
horizontal rule
5

I was quite pleased to discover that.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:12 AM
horizontal rule
6

If I remember right, the story goes that Foucault was paid for his participation with a large block of marijuana.


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:14 AM
horizontal rule
7

There's actually a ton of stuff. Heidegger, Adorno, Horkheimer, Habermas, etc. Maybe we can make this a weekly feature. No! Daily!


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:15 AM
horizontal rule
8

This is the best philosophy video yet.


Posted by: Populuxe | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:17 AM
horizontal rule
9

3: If you're going to make a "serious inquiry" into moral responsibility regarding apartheid, at least take both sides into account. What of the extraordinary burdens placed on the whites keeping black people down? It was easier in this country, where whites were a majority. Much harder in South Africa. The stress associated with doing so can lead to really unsightly skin blemishes among the ruling class. As you can see, no doubt, if you look closely at the video.


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:18 AM
horizontal rule
10

The LaRouchies are big Bertrand Russell haters, believing him to be allied with Aristotle, Isaac Newton, and the Anglo-Dutch-Venetian conspiracy.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:18 AM
horizontal rule
11

Heidegger, Adorno, Horkheimer,

Any good philosophers, though?


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:23 AM
horizontal rule
12

You mean like Gibran?


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:25 AM
horizontal rule
13

I think s/he means Bruce.


Posted by: OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:26 AM
horizontal rule
14

Or Peter Ustinov.


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:26 AM
horizontal rule
15

Ronald Reagan. Yanni. Dr Phil. You know, the Western Canon.


Posted by: Gonerill | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:27 AM
horizontal rule
16

8: Whoa, the comments on that are actually funny.

I searched Youtube for the name of the only philosophy professor I've had, and found this.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:27 AM
horizontal rule
17

I don't seem to be able to find any Quine on YouTube. A professor I had as an undergraduate showed us rather a lot of Quine videos. There was one in which he was asked about all sorts of personal preferences, and he expressed a strong dislike of canned tuna.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:29 AM
horizontal rule
18

All other philosophy videos are now unnecessary.


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:32 AM
horizontal rule
19

The single comment to the video in 18 is so earnest!


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:35 AM
horizontal rule
20

Adorno on popular music and Joan Baez. My German isn't good enough to pick up more than a word or two here and there, but I'm betting he disapproves.


Posted by: Populuxe | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 8:51 AM
horizontal rule
21

Adorno's saying that using popular music (which is inescapably commodified) in the attempt at political protest ends up making appalling things (Vietnam) consumable.


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 9:18 AM
horizontal rule
22

The best sentence from the narration:

Eine wie Adorno hatte das sofort durchschaut.

(One such as Adorno saw through all that immediately.)


Posted by: Blume | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 9:21 AM
horizontal rule
23

Adorno is what happens when your doomsaying crank uncle is smarter and better read than you are.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 9:24 AM
horizontal rule
24

23 -- perfect. hovertext?


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 9:31 AM
horizontal rule
25

The hovertext already quotes Emerson.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 9:33 AM
horizontal rule
26

"Eine wie McManus hatte das sofort durchschaut."


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 9:46 AM
horizontal rule
27

popular music (which is inescapably commodified) in the attempt at political protest ends up making appalling things (Vietnam) consumable.

What I've never understood about Adorno is the idea that some kind of art magically gets to resist commodification, when right there in statements like that you see him himself expressing something undifferentiatable from the consumables-snobbery of someone who thinks eating bad cheese is a moral failing. (Also who he imagines looking at, reading, or listening to his ideal forms of art—but then wiser heads than I have told me just to imagine Adorno as a pair of disapproving jowls.)


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 9:53 AM
horizontal rule
28

18: oh dear me. No, we're totally not flaky around here.

I tried to read Crick's book on consciousness. It was pretty silly, not to put to fine a point on it.


Posted by: Beefo Meaty | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 9:58 AM
horizontal rule
29

Adorno: "Und ich muss sagen, wenn also dann irgendjemand sich hinstellt und auf eine im Grunde doch schnulzenhafte Musik dann irgendwelche Dinge darüber singt, dass Vietnam nicht zu ertragen sei, dann finde ich, dass gerade dieser Song nicht zu ertragen ist, weil er, indem er das Entsetzliche noch irgendwie konsumierbar macht, schließlich auch daraus noch etwas wie Konsumqualitäten herauspresst."

Blume's synopsis is correct. Adorno accuses protest singers of extracting something marketable from horrors, by using "sentimental" music to make the stomach-turning subject matter into something palatable.


Posted by: Knecht Ruprecht | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 10:00 AM
horizontal rule
30

The hovertext already quotes Emerson.

The hovertext could say:

"Adorno^H^H^H^H^H^H John Emerson is what happens when your doomsaying crank uncle is smarter and better read than you are."

That's too many "^H"'s, though, it's too bad you can't use strikethrough on the hovertext.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 10:11 AM
horizontal rule
31

^W is your friend.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 10:13 AM
horizontal rule
32

Finally, ogged's seinfeld hatred explained: he's just following Derrida's advice.


Posted by: washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 07-16-07 10:26 AM
horizontal rule