Dear,
Wisecrack
I come to you today, as authors in the twenty-first century. The video essay slowly replaces my work. I saw your video on the information age, how intellectuals are getting dumber. A textbook I read on the Psychology of Persuasive Speech---back in 1980---understood the phenomena. When someone hits a popular conscience, has a marketable idea, or generally interests people with it, it becomes like a demonic possession, infiltrating everything they do.
It's like a miner finding an endless stream of fool's gold, and because there is an equally greater fool willing to purchase it from him, he mines the rock without first checking the mountain if there were anything real within it. Any corundum, diamond, gold, silver or amethyst would even be good. Instead they mine the fool's gold, and like a Jackson Polluck Painting, because it validates their acquiescence to power, they pay top dollar for it.
Let me tell you a secret. Jackson Polluck hangs in billionaire's homes because it demonstrates a principle of success and marketing. That no matter how aesthetically worthless something is, it can still be valuable with the right marketing. With that, artwork rivalling Leonardo---even excelling his ability---doesn't get sold or patronized.
Information is no worse or better. It's not the quality, but rather the notoriety. Yet, if that information is actually true, it tends to offend the audience. Therefore, you rarely get truth spoken in public settings. The best sermon I heard was about a man making an analogy between David and Goliath, with Christians and Homosexuality. And sure enough, he is no longer on the air. Not because he offended, and therefore was censured. But, because the audiences were offended, and therefore he was defunded.
Understand the truth is offensive. The truth is bare. It's gritty. Great poetry speaks truth---and the job of a reader is to understand it. Yet, if the greatest poet to live in 300 years were writing this essay, notice that that same poet doesn't make much above forty dollars from his work.
Markets dictate value. They dictate the quality of ideas. They dictate the substance of ideas. I once got into an argument---as per I saw this in a dream---between myself and Athena. Athena had said, "You cannot allow markets to dictate the quality of information." And I, in my Glenn Beck phase---my phase of loving Free Markets---said, "But why not? Of course people will choose the best information." And he, Athena, said to me, "I will allow it." To which, in the vision, I went home.
Now, I see the truth. Men hate the truth. And a man---not a god---like Athena was right, though beholden unto him, he had taken exception to my work. And he did not like it. So, he cursed it, and fought against it, and set the world on fire.
For the problem today is wisdom sets the world ablaze. Everyone is beholden to their own truths, rather than the actual truth. Truth becomes a mirror rather than an instrument by which to observe the natural world. And because of this, men and women are oppressed by ideas which are unnatural and unyielding to others.
Poetry can save the world. Only because it would teach people to listen. God will save a soul, but poetry will save the world. Because if men listened, rather than spoke---if men and women took the time to observe nature, form and entity they would understand that there are only two sexes, two genders, and the exception to this a rare phenomena which would be dealt with according to that specific case. They'd understand Homosexuality is a sin because it is dirty and foul and dehumanizing---and it correlates with social decadence and decline, both being caused by the same problem, which is pleasure being made into a god.
And with that being said, if there is no wisdom, there is no objective truth, there is no observable, intrinsic good, then there remains nothing on which to create happiness, or trust or solidarity. It, like G. K. Chesterton said, would last but a generation, yet what a hellish generation it would be.
Mark 13:51Jesus saith unto them, Have ye understood all these things? They say unto him, Yea, Lord. 52Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.
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4 thoughts on “Dear, Wisecrack”
This is outstanding work.
“Now, I see the truth. Men hate the truth. And a man—not a god—like Athena was right, though beholden unto him, he had taken exception to my work. And he did not like it. So, he cursed it, and fought against it, and set the world on fire.”
I do like the above lines. The truest words. “Men hate the truth.”
This is outstanding work.
“Now, I see the truth. Men hate the truth. And a man—not a god—like Athena was right, though beholden unto him, he had taken exception to my work. And he did not like it. So, he cursed it, and fought against it, and set the world on fire.”
I do like the above lines. The truest words. “Men hate the truth.”
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Thanks Coyote. It’s a true story. 🙂
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A worthwhile story and you are welcome.
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Thanks. It was a dream I had. So, true in that sense. 🙂
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