A New Theory on Kitsch

It seems like "Kitsch" is applied to all the good art. Anything that truly related to a mass audience, anything that clearly established its message, anything that was formed from tradition and craft.

I'd say Michelangelo's David is Kitsch, and every piece of art right up to, and about, the time of the Industrial Revolution.

While Shit is inevitably a part of this world, no one wants to step in it. Nor, does anyone want to smell like it. No one wants to be it. And I think art that intentionally makes Shit its subject matter, that's what it essentially is.

Therefore, I offer a better definition for Kitsch. Kitsch is that which overly emphasizes the banal qualities of life. I see it in everything, from the nihilistic and pluralistic worldview being created, and pressed onto the world. A Golden Toilet Seat, that defames and mocks all the hard work Artists have done and achieved throughout the world, that is not kitsch? But, an idealized form of beauty, or an emphasis on what's good, that is kitsch?

The fact remains, what is called "Kitsch" like Kincaid's work, is good art. It emphasizes the better qualities of human beings, and not the shit. It does get to a point, where authors write so much pessimistic and banal worlds, all of them coalescing around fruitless romances, unhealthy relationships, abuse, narcissism, murder, theft, war... It seems to exclude the very thing Art is... which is beautiful.

Excrement is not kitsch, but a healthy attachment is.

What is art, if not for the enjoyment and edification of mankind? What is poetry, if there is no poetic justice? As one commentator put it, "Art won't put the thumb on the scale of justice." Then why even write it? What is art, if Syrinx is raped by Pan, and she doesn't turn into a knoll? What is art, if Hans Christian Andersen's Shadow is not a menace? What is a love story, where the couple dislikes each other? Why praise divorce over marriage? Why praise suffering over pleasure? Why praise self over companionship? Why spoil the joy?

That is what art is, and remains, is the contrast of our worst with our best. It is the mortal combat between the two. The mortal combat between good and evil. The mortal combat between Shadow and Light. And if the light does not prevail? What then? Is it art! No, that is kitsch. If there is an ideal, and that ideal is true... there are those who attain it, and why shouldn't we? There are insufferable pedants who wish every good thing to be reduced to suffering. For, they are Buddhist, and not Christian. The Buddhist revels in the darkness, and blindly strives for his way, while the Christian conquers the dark, and raises to eternal glory.

Art, though, is meant to cause suffering in our modern world. That is what people enjoy. They enjoy Hell, for it interests them more than Heaven. Give them a beautiful seascape, or a peaceful image, or a colorful cottage by the river, and they'll want a Hell, a barren desert, a guttural battle, a burning effigy.

Is this to say that our better instincts never prevail? No... most sensible people do not like this, which comes full circle that the masses are enlightened. For, like Jesus said of the Pharisees being blind, had they been blind, they could see. It is obvious to those not indoctrinated in art, what is truly beautiful. What is truly grotesque. Those unindoctrinated know the difference between good and evil, beauty and ugliness (even that word is ugly and unpoetic), they know what is right.

At the end of the day, the good guy does sometimes lose, but in his loss we draw sympathy to the hero. We do not revel in his misfortune. We do not callously walk the path of the villain, and do what he does. We are not the doorkeeper of the Law, but rather sympathize with the man who sits on the stool. And though our world is very bizarre, and though some of the worst things imaginable happen in this world, our optimism ought to outshine our pessimism. The virtue of beauty, is a virtue that creates.

But, alas, that is the whole of it. We have Malthusians as elites, who wish to bestow upon the world suffering, so they can enjoy life, and remain unbothered. They wish to bestow upon the lower classes no moral values, no aesthetic truths, nothing good. For if they do so, they gain the world, and the rest of us are just sitting by the wayside, waiting for our turn to die. As, they wish to create no hope, for if there is hope, they cannot eat happily knowing the lessers among them have it.

And that is why Kitsch needs redefined.

Kitsch is not the reworking of older molds, to produce new artforms. Kitsch is not the framing of things in mastery. For, if it is, then no one can truly live off of there art. There is no quality. There is no purity. There is no honor, beauty or truth. For the patron of the arts, arts should be accessible to all. It should be written, and now surpassed. Art should be accessed by a Clerk and Common as well as a Baron or King. It should be for all, for all people's enjoyment. It should not encapsulate human suffering, but rather human triumph.

Michelangelo cast moulds of ancient Greek Busts. He practiced his chisel on those moulds. Some might call that plagiarism. I do not. I call it mastering, so one can then reach beyond. Some might call that Kitsch, to work in Romantic or Neoclassical moulds. It matters because the moulds are there, and haven't been used for many years. They are dusty, but strike the same beautiful press now, that they did back then. Only now, we can sculpt David and Pieta and Moses, having those moulds to work with. We can reach beyond our predecessors and move to something new. Something wholly uncharted, and divine.

Should man reach for the mastery? Ought man reach for the heavens? Like a tower of Babel? Well, art no more is a tower of Babel than a trowel a musical instrument. Some backward, and folksy man might make a Trowel into some noise played in folk art---but then we transcend it, and do what is effectively art. So long as the trowel makes good music.

For, art can be a Tower of Babel, reaching into untapped realms, to bring forth humanity's worst, and then it says, "Look! Look upon the mess, and revel in it! I am covered in fleshy filth, and I do not wish to wash! I smoke my pipe of manure, I go unbathed for my entire life, I eat durian fruit and the neighboring town can smell me from miles away! And I am celebrated, famous, and even the poet knows me!" I do... and I know bathing was your ruin... but let not the rest of us become so filthy.

No Woke; No Bull. A Review of the Woman King 10/10

I came into this, with the lowest expectations. I thought I was going to get a cheesy Hollywood film, with BLM activism, Antifa, LGBT. I did see a historically accurate Eunuch. Which, was a very clever use of a transgender person, which, you can't argue with because it's part of a lot of ancient cultures.

Overall, all the characters were very well developed. The story had a very strong plot, and it was well developed. Which is rare for Hollywood these days, to actually put together a coherent script that doesn't suck.

The historical accuracy was off the charts, however. I read a lot of reviews of this, that nitpicked, but it really focused on all aspects of the Slave Trade. It had a general truth about it, and some people say it didn't focus enough on the how the Dahomeys enslaved Africans, but I found that to be the entire plot point of the movie, was how Africans enslaved Africans. I found no politics, but rather hard facts.

There's a lot of unfair reviews of this movie. But, it's a lot like Spartacus, and if this didn't win an academy award, it should have for best picture, and best set. It reminds me of old Hollywood, and the golden age of film. Just the way it's so immersive, and you really get the sense of home when at Dahomey. Like, I liked the African dance. They were beautiful martial artists, but also great dance choreography---the two often go hand in hand.

It's a hidden gem, and don't let your conservative or woke friends betray you. It's a movie beyond politics, and really sticks to basic principles of story. And its historical accuracy was off the charts, even in some strange ways that I hadn't expected.

Rejected from IMDb

The Southside of Heaven by Ryan Bingam Analysis

So, the poem is talking about when the narrator dies. To be put on a train. I've had imaginations of heaven, that there'd be trains. It's an interesting facet of the song. You can find that in City of God. The poem is referring to "Southside of Heaven", the recurring phrase means the Southlands. There's a certain patriotism, and home like quality for southerners with the South. And, the Train is taking him to that Southern Comfort.

Here's a reference to Paul on the road to Damascus. Which, is the line that caused me to write an analysis, as that's expert craftsmanship, to have that allusion. The lost faith is in "Family"... we often have this lost faith, and become disillusioned to our youthful goals of having relationships. We become blind like Paul on the road to Damascus, being smitten by God, and blinded to our hopes, in order to turn us back.

A refrain, about going to heaven, and losing the hardships of this earth. The earth is hard, it's cold, and for a man who's suffered a lot, it's better to leave this earth, than to call it our home. The song is a ballad about leaving Earth, and returning to the Southern Comfort, or the idyllic Youth.

A desperado in Texas, not getting rain. "Rain" is blessing, in Biblical symbolism---which is what the song is drawing from. Wandering the deserts, not receiving rain is indicative of calling this world hell. The Southside of Heaven, is also a humble plea, to take him to the lowest rungs of heaven, so at least he can be happy.

And here's a reference to Cocaine, the drug use is like a train going off the tracks. Like a train out of control.

So, we have a "Cold" desert. An interesting play on words, and I wonder if there's some references to Afghanistan... as it's not uncommon for Afghanistan's deserts to get cold. So, it might have some allusions to the Afghanistan war. Coupled with the drug use, maybe it's a soldier coming home, and wanting to take the train to heaven.

Money can't buy his "Soul". Being rich can't save you. It can't save you from the hell on earth. Only Christ's blood can actually save you. Another one of the lines that made me want to analyze this song. That's two allusions to biblical themes, and I find them well crafted, nuanced, and possibly something many readers will miss. It actually reminds me of a Johnny Cash song, with its craft.

Again with the reference to Cold. The refrain, it's talking about Cold Deserts---and again, we don't really associate deserts with cold. Normally we associate them with hot. So, it's a sort of reality experience. I think---even if this isn't an anthem of a veteran---a person who's been to Afghanistan, definitely becomes confronted with this odd pairing, which is a complete misalignment of archetypes and popular images. Which, in our experiences, things that don't fit our expectations are often much worse because they're completely alien.

And a repetition of the last refrain.

My Favorite Poet

My favorite poet is William Shakespeare. You might say, “That’s cliche.” Okay, my favorite novelist is Leo Tolstoy. So, I’m full of them. My favorite book is the Bible. You got a problem with that? Lol.

No, but Shakespeare’s Sonnets are the best Epic Poem in the English Language. It’s Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy. It’s Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice, all wrapped up in a masterpiece. It’s just so beautiful… and you get to know Shakespeare, and his family dynamics.

Like, I just realized it was an epic poem one day—when reading through it. All the verses were linked, and they began to tell a story of Shakespeare, the Strafford Man, telling the story in the bargaining phase of grief.

First, William tells Hamnet to court a woman, and due to Hamnet’s half black skin tone—Anne Hathaway is black—he courts a woman, seduces her, and then he brags about her in public, and this angers her family. Finally, he receives a wound and is bedridden, while Shakespeare is lamenting his Hamnet’s love. That’s why Hamnet is love… but Hamnet was wounded, and he’s dying. And being Shakespeare’s technical slave—Hathaway was black, and therefore a concubine—he doesn’t care. He respects Hamnet as an equal, and Shakespeare is lamenting his fatherly advice to his son, to go out and find love. As, a mixed race child would be unwanted at that time period, and it added salt on the wound that Hamnet was bragging about seducing her. Finally, Hamnet dies, and Shakespeare visits the grave after it’s been tomb raided, and he sees the half decayed corpse of Hamnet. This is when his Muse had died. And he ends the play by whimsically parodying his strained relationship with Anne, and how he had no attraction to her whatsoever, but he still loved her.

Honestly, the Sonnets are the most brilliant part of Shakespeare. It’s his greatest masterpiece. His greatest tragedy, but also Comedy, as it ends with he and Anne.

A Critique of T. S. Eliot

Eliot adumbrated a modern era, where art was at its most foul, so that experts couldn't live off of their craft, and marketing teams and those who wrought sheer bathos could. As is the old maxim, throw enough shit against the wall, and some of it will stick. Well, we have a wall covered with fecal matter, but underneath it is a compost heap. Like Ezekiel digging through the wall in vision, we see grotesque creatures being worshipped, and the sun, and sin... but what we do not see is an elevation of the proper elements of artistic endeavor.

There are men and women, whom only at four or five years old, could compose masterpieces rivaling that of contemporaries and charlatans who have worked in their fields for half their lives. Should such an individual be laid to the wayside, and pursue other careers? While someone who has not talent, earns their bread from throwing the fecal matter against the canvas, by babbling in tongues?

Simply put, in a market economy, there needs to be art and artists. As, what else will the common lay occupy themselves with, during their periods of rest? What will edify them? What will teach them the mysteries, and educate them long past their schoolings? As all art is a cycle, of rebirth, but Eliot's critical methods celebrate a poor work of art. It is not a good work of art. Sure, the language is pretty... but it is bathos. Eliot the poet is a supreme champion, but Eliot the literary scholar has destroyed art.

Simply put, if the novel dies, so does the movie, so does the music, so does poetry, so does the sculpting... and then there is left a rich fanatic hording wealth for wealth's sake, and not even the edification of art. A billionaire buys for obscene amounts of money font on a blue canvas. And then truly gifted artists struggle... they end up as warehouse workers, or postmen, or line cooks, and nobody ever learns of their genius. Simply, they have an audience of one. And this is not fair to them.

A gifted writer, ought to write. A gifted painter ought to paint. A gifted reader ought to be an academic. Anyone who can understand Ulysses, ought to be in the elite of academics, but for I---having written difficult books too--if Ulysses is a stepping stone, utter banality was the heap which it descended into.

It's a simple matter of markets. Those competent to work at trade goods, if this is their genius, ought to work their genius, and the populace ought to purchase it. Not by threat, or force, but simply by the genius of the work itself. It is only fair, and without this, there are artists who can sculpt David and they end up working as a waiter, or a prostitute for a multi billion dollar company.

Not everyone can do art. Not everyone ought to do art. But, unfortunately, with Mr. Eliot's critical method employed, the very people doing art, are the ones who shouldn't be. Those succeeding are the very fools who should probably be working as waiters, or servers, or prostitutes for billion dollar companies. As, that's what their talents employ. And there's no shame in it, if the artists are making a living off of their talents. But, instead, in this kingdom, it's reversed. The exact worst people are being celebrated, those who market, those who conform, those who gauge an audience and sell them what they want. Or, there's the obscenity of such artists making urinating mannequins or sitting thirty ton boulders on top of a pillar. Which, is not art.

Anne Hathaway was Black

The dedication on Shakespeare's Sonnets were to Hamnet. Shakespeare’s half black son, to the Black Lady, whom Shakespeare felt was foul looking. Why? Likely because she was of african descent, and it didn’t suit him well. I know this for several reasons. First, is the often reference to Hamnet's pale skin color---saying he could pass off as white. Second, to the reference to the "Slutishness of time" which means the story is reflecting on the possible erotic interpretation, that it is faulty, and the poem makes itself to be interpreted as a possible elegy several times. Third, because the subject of the poem is referred to several times as nigh his deathbed, and is on a sickbed recovering. Fourth, because Shakespeare calls himself Hamnet's slave, showing the depths to which he loved his son, and wished the circumstances were not so.

Reading the Sonnets, it’s clear that Shakespeare had a son to a concubine, and the sonnets—given the fact that Ben Johnson wrote an elegy to his son—were written, also, as an elegy to Hamnet, Shakespeare’s son. W. H. stands for William’s Hamnet. And the half black skin tone on Hamnet led to a failed courtship, by which Hamnet was wounded and eventually killed, and Shakespeare was mourning his son through the course of the sonnets. Likely, it was written in the course of a couple of days, as a genius of literary masterpieces can do, and this was what led and inspired Romeo and Juliet. Not to mention many other Shakespeare plays like Hamlet and likely the riotous marriage led to the inspiration of Macbeth, and also the cross cultural marriage in The Merchant of Venice.

Meaning, Anne Hathaway was black, and likely a slave on the plantation that she’s normally associated with. And they had a very tumultuous relationship, which translated to the plays. And Shakespeare, when he was eighteen, married her because he got her pregnant at twenty six, which, also, the strangeness of the marriage was likely due to the mixed race background. And there were blacks in England at this time, and many of them, due to the slave trade.

Now, I know this from having read the sonnets, and having a very developed ability to read old English.

So, Shakespeare was not Edward De Vere. Unless you’re going to say that Edward had a Black wife, and associated with with women of lower decent, as is depicted in the last quarter of the sonnets.

Furthermore, it is nothing for a man with an iq of 190 to learn Latin, and gain the materials enough to have written the plays. Shakespeare was educated, and he was likely a voracious reader, being proficient in Latin, having self taught it, as is possible for someone of so high of an intelligence quotient. It happens every day with even normal people of slightly above average intelligence.

Saying otherwise denies basic facts about history, humanity, and it destroys the credibility of the record handed down through the generations, which purportedly, is true, as the victors last generation were Christians, and they had not lied. Putting history into question, and trying to rewrite it is dangerous, stupid, foolish, and in a sense, the problem with the modern culture. It doesn't work, especially where it contradicts basic facts about Shakespeare, or in general, the entire canon of Western History and their witnesses' first hand reports whom the scholars would reference to make their books.

To invent this theory that Edward De Vere is Shakespeare, one would have to create a conspiracy of an Earl to use a Stradford man as a front for his plays. Which, is almost entirely not the case, as there is no evidence to prove it, and rather, the theory relies on the hypothesis that such a convoluted plot could take place.

What is known, is that through the Sonnets, Shakespeare associated with the absolute bottom rung of society, which is not proper for an Earl such as Edward De Vere. This theory is put to rest.

To support my claim even more, that Hamnet was the subject of the Sonnets, there's reference in the later Sonnets to Shakespeare having dug open Hamnet's grave, and he describes how his Muse is lost, and he describes in stark detail a decayed corpse. This was Hamnet, who inspired Hamlet, and Hamnet had been killed over a failed courtship, because he boasted of having slept with a young maid. And Shakespeare was lamenting the behavior of Hamnet, which led to his wounds, and brought shame upon his family.

In conclusion, Shakespeare was not Edward De Vere. He couldn't have been.

ⒸB. K. Neifert, 2022

Analysis of the Fable “Don’t Argue with Donkeys”

I just realized something. If the King decrees something contrary to judgment, that makes him a bad king. So, while the disagreement might seem arbitrary and petty, the worse villain is the Lion for decreeing a thing which is untrue, and then punishing the Tiger for what was. It’s funny, but this kind of represents all of the problems in Western Civilization today, that we justify the Lion in his bad judgment.

The fact is, the premise of Western Enlightenment rests on reason’s capacity to win. If we say that there is no capacity in some, and that trying to win them by reason is wicked and unlawful, and deserves to be punished, then we fundamentally undermine Western Society, and the King really does decree that the Grass is Blue.

This is not a good moral. At all.

Author Unknown. Edited by Hamilton, Jeffery W.. "Don't Argue with Donkeys." La Vista Church of Christ.org, archives. https://www.lavistachurchofchrist.org/cms/bible-studies/moral-principles-for-young-people-volume-ii/dont-argue-with-donkeys/. Web.

However, as a fellow brother in Christ's story, I believe the point is good as a proverb for dealing with foolish people. However, the King in this instance is not a good king. He should never lie out of spite. Nor should a man be punished for speaking what is true by authority. Rather, authority should punish the Donkey, not the Tiger. Thus, the story shows our modern error in judgment.

Questions answered:

The Lion in the story was not just, and is an emblem of today's civil court system. That it explicitly, knowing what is right, justifies fools.

One ought to disagree with someone, if what they are saying is blatantly false, as if their idea gets perpetuated, and becomes law through the King, who then becomes persecuted? Obviously we do. Is it the Tiger's fault that the Lion's decree was unwise? Does not a wise King tell the truth, and reward truth tellers? Will not Christ reward us, for speaking the truth in Christ, and for disagreeing with the world? How does the Gospel get preached, if there can be no disagreement? If Lies are upheld by those in high authority?

We do not have to win every argument. But, that's not the point of this story? Is it? The Tiger went to the King to get a just discernment. And the King failed in this simplest of tasks.

No. Reality does not change because of beliefs. Nor does it change because of the Lion's decree.

I think there was no better way for the Tiger to handle it. As, he went to the authority, but the Authority lied and punished him, insead of the evildoer. As is what happens so often in this world. There is no authority, except what is depraved and wicked and unlawful ordinance. That is why so many people suffer.

Who should have been punished was the Ass and not the Tiger.

Analysis of A Tale of Two Cities

I'm reading it right now. Am at the chapter where Charles tells the Doctor that he loves Lucile.

I thought it was disjointed, too. I literally was dreading coming to this novel, but at about the scene where the wine flowed through the street, and the gritty realities of Feudalism were revealed to me, it began to make sense. The random scenes turned into a tapestry, and a story emerged. It's one of the most fantastic things I'd ever seen, actually. It really shifted focus once Monseigneur Marquis was introduced. It became a tapestry, and then adding Charles as the love interest of the Dr.'s daughter Lucile... It's very good. Like, everything else is making sense, and the earlier scenes have weight to them.

I think as Dickens was writing---it was first a serialized novel---he didn't know what direction to take, until the Marquis arrived, and then a plot formed out of thin air.

It's really a completion of War and Peace. Like, Tolstoy gives the Russian perspective of the French Revolution---and I have to say I'm kind of left wondering in Tolstoy why the French would invade---but then seeing the absolute tyranny of French Feudalism, it became clear why they would launch a campaign into the rest of Europe. Like, I know where the novel is going, to show the energy of the French and the oppression they felt.

It really puts into perspective our modern movements. Like, they're rebelling in their affluence. They aren't abjectly poor, and sheep for the slaughter. You can't run someone over in a city, and kill them, and expect to get away with it in America. Like seeing that scene with the Marquis---which is pretty high up in the food chain, but still ought to be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law---running over men and children on the street. And that there is no accountability for him. He does it with impunity. It's a good explanation for the social conditions which led to the French Revolution, and later on the Napoleonic Wars.

Like, it's truly one of the most important pieces of literature ever---it's kind of the other half of Tolstoy's War and Peace. You really get it, why the French would be enraged, but when they met the Russians, the Russians weren't dissatisfied with their treatment. Not until they were freed---which is kind of worrying actually.

A Tale of Two Cities is a great piece of literature. I shouldn't have called it disjointed at the beginning, as those first six chapters establish the character of Lucile and the Doctor. It gives us a portrait of their tender relationship, and the struggle, and when the plot explodes onto the scene, it's gripping.

Dear, Professor G______

Dear,
Professor G______

I love Eliot's work. Ezra Pound was anti-Semitic. There's no question about that. But, when I read Prufrock, for instance, I think of it more of a caricature. Oddly, I envision Yeats, or someone like him, deluded by magic and mysticism. Basically, of the hard-hearted scholar. Therefore, Anti-Semitism might be part of the caricature Eliot is portraying. I think of him as writing in a persona.

For one thing, Prufrock is not someone I'd like to be. He seems to be a satire on the jaded scholar. And, since Anti-Semitism was hotly popular around T. S. Eliot's time---it's undoubtable that had not Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, the country would have likely turned Fascist---it's not unlikely that Eliot is creating a satire on the American Intellectual. I mean, I have his "Inventions of the March Hare" on my bookshelf, and all the poems seem to me more or less a persona of the half wise scholar. It's likely why the poems are so unpleasant.

It's kind of like Milton being charged with heresy because he wrote Paradise Lost. I'm a poet, too, and often the characters I write, while playing the narrator, can be quite different than who I actually am. It can often times be acting, or trying to understand something.

I found your article compelling in the direction that Eliot was not Anti-Semitic. I mean, had I to wager a bet, it'd have gotten less likely after reading that, in my own mind, that Eliot was anti-Semitic. I assume you're talking about the Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock and the Wasteland, when you say he seems anti-Semitic. I've never read the Wasteland, nor will I. But, I have an early draft of "Inventions of the March Hare" on my bookshelf, and I would think Eliot is creating a satirical caricature of the 20th century intellectual. I don't think it is autobiographical.

Garner, David. "T. S. Eliot's Anti-Semitism Hotly Debated As Scholars Argue Over New Evidence". University of York. 5 February 2003. Web. https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2003/ts-eliot/. 4/19/22.

Eliot, T. S.. Copyright Holder Valerie Eiliot. Edited by Christopher Ricks. Inventions of the March Hare. Harcourt Brace & Company, 1996. Text

Fahrenheit 451

Upon reading the novel, it dawned on me that Ray had felt that way in 1960. He'd seen it. And, I, in 2022, feel that way. It is the alienation of any genius---that is the ethos of the book.
Yet, the insidious thing about Fahrenheit 451 is that the dystopian doesn't actually censor books. It's far worse than that. It censors creativity. It censors openness. It censors genius of any kind.
That's the thing about it. I feel that way right now, but it is rather the social awkwardness of being what I am. If that were made illegal, and it were a crime to think, a crime to be open, a crime to be different, that's the insidious nature of Fahrenheit 451. Not just the burning of books---which is bad---but the outright denial of one's right to think, act, believe, experience.

There are certain people with High IQs, and most scientists and scholars are among them, who having the elephant memory they do, cannot piece together information to create new ideas. There are such individuals with extremely high IQs which are incapable of creativity.
Then, there are people like me, who have a high IQ, but have extreme openness, extreme creativity, extreme existential intelligence. Who, would certainly be the figure Fahrenheit 451's society censored.

I feel that encroaching sense that it may be coming soon. But, I do not wish it, to. But, there are two kinds of geniuses. Mathematical, and Linguistic. Mathematical geniuses have the ability to do arithmetic. They have the ability to edit books meticulously, for no punctuation or grammatical errors. They remember like an elephant rote rules, formula, traditions,---and they are very intelligent people. Ask them anything about protocol or a certain duty they will be able to tell you down to the exact letter. That's probably why I didn't do well in Boy Scouts.
Yet, creative geniuses---being that we are so rare actually---have another ability. That ability to piece together thoughts, and weave them, and express them. To make new from raw materials. To rediscover ancient philosophies and traditions.

It may just be the difference between intelligence and wisdom. Yet, when I look at a fireman, I see Ray Bradbury's creature. I see Guy Montag. I saw in the woods a fireman, one who worked for a fire company, and the soulless determination, the thoughtless trample through the woods without even looking at the bluebells in full bloom to his left---rather, he was determined to accomplish some arcane goal.

Christ is very strange, as a godlike figure, in that He inverts the traditional values we assume when we think of conservatism. Unemployment, aimless wandering, long diatribes and discussions, parables,---Christ lived as a man of words, and He told us to live the same. Because, obviously, determination and desire to reach a goal thwarts the wisdom. Of rubbing dandelions on your cheek, of opening your mouth and catching the rain, of stopping to smell the flowers. These are utterly human things, and by seeking to accomplish a goal, by mindlessly driving ahead for the attainment of a reward or occupation, one does not appreciate the things they see. They, like Mildred, get ensconced in a play about nothing.

And the problem is so many people are like thus. So many people, instead of being creative, are not able to be creative. There are intelligent people who cannot be creative. There are intelligent people, conversely, who cannot do simple arithmetic. Like myself. Though maths were my better subject in school---I hated reading---it still didn't change the fact that I was better off as a philosopher than a mathematician. I never learned math past algebra, and I never got into Quadratic Formulas or exponents until College. Literally, I never saw a quadratic equation until my second year at college. Yet, I was proficient enough at the basic rudimentaries of math that I could get a 100% on my first Math Test without a calculator. My grades actually declined the more I required a calculator. But that doesn't stop the fact that I am inconsistent at math.

What use is there for a philosopher? Namely, that is the question Fahrenheit 451 asks. What use is there for contradictory wisdoms from numerous books? What reason does a man like me, falsely state that all summer leaves begin as flowers? Perhaps to take notice to it. As, most leaves look like flowers---if not outright are flowers---in their beginning stage, while unfolding from the bud. Yet, some haughty scholar, will do like they do with Aristotle some years down the line. "All trees do not flower." One of their more tender students will chuckle at the insidious misrepresentation of my thoughts, and then think "You miss the essence of a flower." If you can look at the oak bud when it's first unfolding, and see it has a consistency much unlike any leaf I'd ever seen. Or, that the ant has four legs. Of course, we like to think of insects as having six legs---when, indeed, their first two legs are protracted to use as arms when the insect is stationary. How many other such observations have we mistakenly discredited in the past? And what wisdom does the past have for the future?
Fahrenheit 451 is the outlawing of thought, the censoring of aberrations, the dictum that only the present knows best, the belief that all things must be literal. And with that, we lose our sense of who we are. And really, what Fahrenheit 451's society outlaws, is humanity itself.
Let it never come to that.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451, with Afterward and Coda. Del Rey Books, 1996. Text.