Wealth Bondage

Serio Ludere - What Supercedes Democracy?

Posted by The Happy Tutor

Moral and political theory is not science, and it is not likely that Locke was "superceded" by Heidegger as was Ptolomey by Gallileo. Who has superceded Diogenes? What has superceded the Talmud? The Sermon on the Mount, maybe? But can we speak here of progress or rather of the successive illuminations of a single moral tradition?

The deeper the thinker the deeper the animosity for those who cannot be taken into his or her tradition. Consider Nietzsche's scorn for both Jesus and Socrates. Do you think he saw himself as part of the Socratic and Christian tradition of the Enlightenment, leading to JS Mill? He had the depth to know that certain wars are eternal, the eternal return, they can never be won, nor lost. We can be faithful, however, and bear witness, keeping alive, if only in a Dumpster the living seeds from the dead tree.

Ludicrous isn't it? I agree; I am just making a Fool of myself; and have studied long and hard at Clown School, wishing only that I were more foolish still.

From the Talmud

Posted by The Happy Tutor

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obliged to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it

. So we encourage one another. Living well and dying well. Say that there is no realistic hope for a better life, a better world, or another world. Then continue per instructions above.

Get into Wealth Bondage

Posted by Candidia Cruikshanks, CEO of Wealth Bondage

Give, Momma your money, Sweetie. I will keep it tied up somewhere nice and safe.

Our Neo-Augustan Age

Posted by The Happy Tutor

Had a chance over vacation to consider my own "roots." Essentially, Augustan. The era of Pope, Swift, Gay. Also the era of coffee houses and conversation. The Enlightenment, but also ferment leading up the French and American Revolutions. British empiricism (and bourgeois liberalism) of Hobbes, Locke and Hume, leading to the Declaration of Independence, The Bill of Rights, and the US Constitution, on down to J.S. Mill and Isaiah Berlin. The counterpoise to the head, in the moral imagination of Wordsworth and George Eliot. The "movement" as it was in the time of Bobby Kennedy and MLK, when rich and poor, white and black, men and women marched together for a world not of friend and foe, but unity, in all our differences. Every way I can think of, people have separated off from that vision - into the women's movement, into postmodernism and deconstruction, into the neocon synthesis of Leo Strauss, Hayek, and Carl Schmidt (the Weimar legal theorist). The Western Canon that was once the operating system for cultured people is now shattered in Gay Lit, Women's Lit, Black Lit, Hispanic Lit. Those who study "English Language and Literature" take as their model French and German theorists in translation, drawing upon a tradition that despises the "bourgeoisie," in other words our fellow Americans, almost all of them, except the working class who aspire to be bourgeois. The real operating system now is Hollywood and Madison Ave with their empty stories, and brands inflated into "protagonists," heroic exemplars of athleticism, love,hospitality and every human emotion or value.

I came of age in another mould, raised by Jesuits, then peddling my fanny on the streets of Ripton, VT to all comers, relying on the kindness of those who were all too pleased to use me for their vile pleasure, forcing me to spank them to ecstasy, without regard to my tender sentiments, or thin-skinned hands. So, I am glad to see a bit of a movement coming back to life, in which our differences are honored but within a sense of unified purpose - concordia discors, the warring strife of opposites, open society, liberal democracy. Though the markets are free, we as people have a long way to go.

We (Dumpster Dwellers all) will create elevated ground on which the best elements can meet, around the burning barrels, out behind Wealth Bondage. We will profit morally, intellectually, spiritually, politically, and perhaps even financially from arbitraging the differences. (E Pluribus Unum - says so on the Almighty Dollar.) As for the rest, those for whom elevated ground (upon which we meet as equal citizens) is a pretext for sanctimony and tyranny, we have Jack Ketch, the famous 18th century hangman, who was the model Dryden held up as his own in Satire.

As long as America is going to be an Empire to rival Rome and England, why not have our own neo-Augustan revival, with blogger conversation, democracy, and satire galore? We might even reinstate the US Constitution come next Fourth of July.

Last Living Speaker of Nushu

Posted by The Happy Tutor

Vitro Nasu:

China’s mother tongue is dying.
* Generations of women passed down a unique form of writing that was kept away from men. Now a 95-year-old may be the last alive who grew up using nushu.

In San Francisco....

Posted by Dick Minim

Tutor and I are hitch-hiking to San Francisco for a second honeymoon. I have asked him not to bring a computer, so that he can pay full attention to me as we commemorate our 30th year of love and fidelity to each other, despite all the temptations of Wealth Bondage. I am bringing my old Fraternity paddle and hope to rekindle that old spark. Wish me luck! Must scoot, more anon.

Her Self

Posted by The Happy Tutor

"Who you lookin' at, asshole?" snarled the Narcissist to her own reflection. "God, I hate it when people stare."

The Canonical Texts of Wealth Bondage

Posted by Dr. Amrit Chadwallah

Taralyn, an artist writes,

Last night, I was greatly amused with "The Happy Tutor" and his ramblings; wealth bondage! (www.wealthbondage.com post dated July 20) And I laughed out loud at a response he received from"Klaus".

Surely, she, as an educated person and lover of the arts, should show more respect. We are doing Critical Theory here, People. Enough of this oral midrash. We are canonical.

Shame is for Sissies

Posted by Joseph McPatriot

Hal Crowther foaming at the mouth. What a pleasure to see liberals having an epileptic fit at the loss of their precious democracy.

First Philosophy and Personal Obligation

Posted by The Happy Tutor

What drew me to philosophy as a teenager were the eternal questions:

What is it to live a good life? What is it to be a good person? What is most true? And how can I contribute to it, or bear witness to it? What is the beautiful? And can I create or advance it? What do we owe one another in a good or just society? What is human excellence? How can I cultivate it in myself and others?

Now, many years later, I listen to Theorists, talking among themselves, and the words just buzz past, though now and again I recognize a name. I am listening still for answers to the original questions, for they seem more timely than ever, but instead of answers I hear are mainly quibbles about the slippage of signs, or the history of rickety discipline (English majors pretending to be philosophers). Those quibbles, and the among Theory scholars, do not answer the craving or tell me my duty as a man and a citizen. Quibbling, nor even the history of lit crit, is not my idea of human excellence, virtue, truth, beauty, or justice. Quibbling may be fun, particularly among those who excel at it, but it is not the height of human achievement. Signs slip, but time slips away, and to spend it so is to waste one's life.

Like Diogenes, I go about the streets with a lantern in daylight seeking an honest man, or a person who lives well. Whose life exemplifies virtue? The Theorist? Politician? Pundit? The Think Tank Thinker? The rich man or woman? The powerful? The Philanthropist?

To make a point about self-sufficiency, Diogenes, who called himself, "a mad Socrates," would masturbate in public, saying, "I wish I could satisfy my hunger as easily." Truth maybe is best taught by public pranks. Or, who knows? Maybe mental masturbation as practiced by Critical Theorists is a better joke.

Of all role models we have to ask: If I become like him, or imitate her, will I be better or worse as a human being and a citizen? Does excellence in quibbling over terms like "justice" prevent injustice? Does quibbling over "truth" excuse our lies and evasions? If no one has a knock down theory of the good, can I be as bad as I please without moral consequence?

Each of us draws our own self-portrait daily in every word we write. To the theorists, I ask: "What kind of human being is it whose daily life is consumed in writing like that? What other acts, say, of kindness or civic engagement, are neglected? Has the theorist seen himself or herself as a character in a play by Aristophenes? And if so, was it funny or instructive?"

We can and do evade words like "True," "Good," "Beautiful," "Virtuous," or "Just," but in the final accounting we are false, bad, ugly, vicious, and unjust all the same. I am no better. I am just a Fetish Action Figure, a Dungeon Master to the Stars, giving pro bono spankings in the Dumpster behind Wealth Bondage. You, though, could be somebody if you tried.

I mean (whack) no disrespect (whack). Turn about is fair play. I accept my chastisement in return.