Ken M
We don’t know our own history because Americans have always been a forward-thinking people. Other countries would do well to follow suit.
John
Not a good answer at all…you can’t really track where you are going if you do not know where you came from.
Ken M
Well remaining ignorant of the future is hardly a recipe for progress.
John
Of course we are ignorant of the future Ken, it hasn’t happened yet.
Ken M
But your point is irrelevant because you made it minutes ago. (1)
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Ken M, an Apology
Ken M, an Internet commentator, has been described by many in the Internet community as a troll extraordinaire, but he does have his following. Parsing the exchanges between him and other commenters is like taking reason for a ride on an anti-Socratic journey. Suddenly the reader is witnessing a real life moment from absurdist literature; maybe it’s a line or two of Godot, or perhaps a bit of Catch-22. Ken M suddenly appears on the misty path ahead like some ancient Samurai of legend on a quest for glory, as if in response to Big Poetry’s cry, “join us in battle, the die has been cast!” (2) Yet time and time again he is left disappointed. His adversaries weak, he toys with them as a cat with a mouse, it’s as if their minds are befuddled with reason and they are left unable to communicate. Yes, this is an attack on reason, reason which has grown too powerful and too quickly. This is an attempt to uproot the foundations of reason reaching back to the time of Plato. It is a battle for freedom.
Ryle, the author of “Plato’s Progress”, writes that Plato wrote far more clearly than we were taught to believe. In his Waggish book review, “Gilbert Ryle’s Plato” (3), Auerbach writes that “Ryle…is utterly unsympathetic to the idea that Plato wrote with a level of elusiveness that would put Heidegger to shame. He assumes that a common-sense interpretation of Plato’s writing is generally accurate and that Plato wasn’t hiding some ‘unwritten doctrines’ or performing some implicit dialectical maneuvers without telling us.” (4) In other words, there is no Esoteric Plato. Auerbach goes on to note Ryle’s suggestion that the Dialogues were in actuality not meant to be read, but meant to be performed, which implies what we are witnessing is not so much a display of pure reason as it is an imagined chess match.
And there it is. Reason’s greatest displays of strength are rigged. The irrational however, will not admit defeat though reason continues to use its only defenses: scorn, derision, dismissal and laughter. Reason owes its ultimate success to the ‘raspberry’ of despair.
I heard the echo
I sensed intent
The pieces didn’t fit
The sky, the oceans, form and theme
Mysteries of the Mean
Spectral truths, chaotic arcs
The lands of A to Z
Topographies, miasmic dreams, the beauty of the sea
And from my mighty height descends the lowest comedy
Ridiculous! Preposterous! Moron! Troll! “You fool!”
And laughter from the darkest bowels puddles at my foot
And as I turn from all I’ve seen, and put it in its place
And rest my weary frame upon the Order I’ve create
I purse my lips, extend my tongue, I pucker up and blow
And to the winds, my offering, the ‘Raspberry of Despair’
These are dangerous times my friends, dangerous times indeed, as the powers of Order and Chaos once again strive to crush each other in their eternal battle, and us beneath their mighty clash. This may be the greatest challenge of our time, to find a middle way, and Ken M is a brave foot soldier in our struggle to find this middle way, or at least to weaken the defenses of our foe. “Please Sir, may I have another?”, the rope-a-dope, reason can run but it can’t hide. Soldier on Ken M! We salute you!
Plus, Ken M is funny as fuck!
(1)http://horseysurprise.tumblr.com/post/74061805661
(2) http://bigpoetry.net/2011/03/20/preamble/
(3) http://www.waggish.org/2012/gilbert-ryles-plato/
(4) Incidentally, it is interesting to consider that parallels may be drawn between his work and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and for that matter that this view is evocative of Freud’s dry retort that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”.