Random
Noah Cicero on the “Anti-Intellectual”
Someone on my Facebook suggested that Internet Literary Writers are not intellectuals.
That they are actually anti-intellectual.
They stated that we speak nonsense.
That it isn’t helping the culture.
I went to the park and sat on a swing for two days wondering, “Am I anti-intellectual? What does it mean to be anti-intellectual? And if I am being anti-intellectual, how am I doing such a thing?”
Then I read some Sam Pink to see, I read this line, “I went to the cantaloupe section and looked at the cantaloupes.”
I stared at the line for a long time. I even counted the syllables. I counted 16 syllables. It has a little meter but not much. I could see the word cantaloupes repeated. Sam Pink is trying to imply the absurdity of cantaloupes to us. A strange round plant that is like a vegetable because it grows on the ground but is actually a fruit because the seeds are contained inside of it. Maybe he is putting out a metaphor here, a fruit that grows like a vegetable. Perhaps Sam Pink is saying he is confused about his identity like the cantaloupe is about his.
The strangest thing about the cantaloupe line is the etymology of the word “cantaloupe.” The word cantaloupe comes from the Latin word Cantalupe. Even if you know a little Spanish you can see quickly that canta lupe means “singing wolf.” Perhaps Sam Pink is trying to convey that he is like the Cantaloupe a “singing wolf.” But to go deeper a “lupe” was a prostitute in ancient Rome, so maybe Sam Pink is also saying that he is a prostitute to modern America’s corporate capitalism and even though he is suffocated by inverted-totalitarianism he will still sing his song.
And strangely it goes into Heidegger’s idea of Being. As soon as the character enters the grocery store, he knows his next move into the future. He knows his habits. He goes forward in a predictable mechanical fashion. But at the same time of being in the modern world of gadgets he needs the most primitive of things, food.
As Socrates said in Plato’s Apology,
When I left the politicians, I went to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts. And there, I said to myself, you will be detected; now you will find out that you are more ignorant than they are. Accordingly, I took them some of the most elaborate passages in their own writings, and asked what was the meaning of them – thinking that they would teach me something. Will you believe me? I am almost ashamed to speak of this, but still I must say that there is hardly a person present who would not have talked better about their poetry than they did themselves. That showed me in an instant that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them. And the poets appeared to me to be much in the same case; and I further observed that upon the strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they were not wise. So I departed, conceiving myself to be superior to them for the same reason that I was superior to the politicians.
5,000 years in a small hut in The Fertile Crescent a guy writes some lines in Cuneiform and shows his friend and his friend responds, “That isn’t correct Cuneiform, you have to write like this.” And that was the first literary argument.
Aww… and I thought I was being so deep… .
Oh, well.
A good % of writers seem to be anti-intellectual. I have no problem with this.
the way you’re using ‘Internet Literary Writers’ you make it sound like a euphemism. and i have no idea what sam pink, heidegger, socrates & pals and mesopotamia has to do with the ‘suggestion’ that began your post. reading this felt like you were deriving non-meaning out of meaning; which is ok, i suppose. i personally prefer the opposite.
seriously though, what is a ‘Internet Literary Writer’? and i don’t mean like: “Who is a ILW?” i mean: What
‘Intellectualism’ is the point, I believe… making too much out of a little. As for what an “Internet Literary Writer” is . . . I don’t have any idea, either… I don’t think Noah would profess to know, either. People say shit. So do I, though I like to think I put a little more thought into the shit I say. On the web, it’s even easier to say shit than in the real world.
Intellect’s etymology is in discernment and comprehension; as long as we are engaging in dialogue with the garbage ocean of Google, and discerning something, and then conveying a discernment rather than just being a mouthpiece for rubbish, I think we (and/or whoever these ILWs are) are probably fine.
nice
i lolled, this was good, ‘got it’
Pseudo-intellectualism to prove just how intellectual you really are? By mocking “intellectual” deconstruction of one seemingly meaningless sentence?
obvious non-sequitur is obvious. Cute post in that irony is easy and cute (I especially enjoyed sitting on a swing for two days).
The beginning Is the most interesting:
~
Someone on my Facebook suggested that Internet Literary Writers are not intellectuals.
That they are actually anti-intellectual.
They stated that we speak nonsense.
That it isn’t helping the culture.
~
Notice the “we”, so whoever this group is it includes the narrator (or at least the narrator identifies with this group).
Also this entire discussions begins on Facebook and quickly devolves into an us vs. they construction, both of which creates a self-referencial and ironic loop.
The last sentence quoted is the thematic center, the root from which literary arguments flower. This statement leads to many vast and fascinating vistas, but irony may as well be the shadows on the cave view.
Thought provoking and a worthwhile failure.
LET US NOW DECONSTRUCT THIS POST.
We all live in Plato’s world. He was right about everything. Everything.
Noah: I like the last paragraph.
What will be the last literary argument? The argument to end all arguments?
What an “Internet Writer” is I really have no idea. Bloggers? I don’t know. Most writers have some sort of internet presence; does that make them an “internet writer?” are we internet writers? I suppose I must be, since I run two webprojects and keep an author’s page as well, and hang out on forums… . But I’m sure as hell not anti-intellectual.
Anyway… I guess all I really have to say is: the important thing, as in real life, is to always be honest. On the web, as in real life, I try to be honest.
I think Noah was trying to be ironic. Or funny. Or both. But it wasn’t clear to me. So I don’t think it’s funny or ironic. And I don’t think he knows the difference between vorhandenheit and zuhandenheit and what that means and why that distinction might be an important one to make when bringing up Heidegger. But I don’t have the energy for it. So I will defer to “deadgod” on the matter. Although it sounds silly to say such things: “defer to deadgod.” I wish that she/he would change her/his name. It would make it so much easier for me. And I would feel like less of a loser for writing such things. Not that “deadgod” is a loser or anything. It’s something I have to deal with. I need the illusion that I’m dealing with someone who wouldn’t want to be identified as “deadgod” in the context of having meaningful discussions. Because there was that time when a certain someone asked me what I was doing. And I was on HTMLGIANT reading the comments section. And the person saw the name “deadgod” and said, “Are you like on a Magic the Gathering forum?” And I blushed and said, “No.” And then I was like . . . Fuck. Just fuck. I feel like a fucking asshole now. Not that Magic the Gathering people are assholes. But I felt like one anyway And that ruined my day. It really did. And yeah, I know, so what if she–the chick who asked me that–said that? Who cares? I know. But still, fuck, man. I felt like a fucking fuck-up. And I shouldn’t have felt that way. And I shouldn’t have been put in a position where I should not have felt what I felt even though there was no good reason for feeling that way. But still. I felt that way. And, fuck. God damn it. Yeah . . . so . . . no offense to “deadgod” or anything, but please, I don’t know, do something to make me feel less uncomfortable.
Thanks in advance,
Justin
Seriously–you go to Sam Pink for the answers? Nothing against, Sam, but–I think even he’s laughing. Not the Old Testament or Dickinson or Picasso or Stein or (oops, sorry, this is HTMLGIANT) DFW–nah, you get out the Sam Pink? A Narcissus moment, eh? Pink’s is a parody/homage of Ginsberg’s “A Supermarket in California” which parodies/homages Whitman and Homer, in an… wait… in an anti-intellectual way. Oh my God! You were right! Noah was right! Pink! Pink! Pink!
h8 reading gonna just get a bite:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/__XCWUd8FFjQ/TLhmPN56fLI/AAAAAAAALgA/mfvk7MUs7Rg/s400/McDonaldsTheM.jpg
Was this post made to show us how Internet Literary Writers are not only anti-intellectual, but also anti-funny and anti-clever?
Not only that, but also like to post anonymous jabs with awfully clever titles-in-place-of-name.
Good for you! You’ve demonstrated your superiority!
Today, October 15, 2010, is Nietzsche’s 166th birthday anniversary, Justin RM. In your Rudderless Cubicle, pierced insensibly by at least one chick who punctuates her voiced breathing with the syllable “like”, sing:
Happy Birthday to you!
You live in a zoo!
You look like a monkey –
And you smell like one, too!
(Your welx.)
I don’t think you know what the word “title” means.
Would you define your terms?
5000 years ago people who wrote in Cuneiform were probably not engaged in stylistic or literary debates. Cuneiform arose as a practical script to assist commerce. It was the writing of lists and ledgers. e.g. if today you have a crate of 50 cantaloupes and sell 20 of them to the Phoenicians down the road, how many cantaloupes will you be able to stare at tomorrow?
It was your term, Tao-clone.
owen kaelin is on record as not being interested in tao’s work, ?!
current listening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkHu7JPxybg
Not since you co-opted it by claiming you knew its true definition.
¿Who are you? Reveal yourself!!
Ah, nevermind. Some people are just here to complain.
The most vital part of your message, anyhow, seems to be the title/name. Possibly the most telling, as well.
Damn! And I thought I’d said that while nobody was listening… . Oh, well.
At any rate, it’s no big deal: there are worse people he/she could weirdly compare me to. I really have nothing against Tao Lin.
i feel like if you put this phrase on a t-shirt – “On the web, it’s even easier to say shit than in the real world.” – people would notice, and be like: “yeah. right on.” but not, like, in libraries. or places like that.
Aww… and I thought I was being so deep… .
Oh, well.
An Internet Literary Writer is a writer who was born in the Internet. As for the ‘Literary’ part, I have no idea.
well… yeah. hence my t-shirt thing. ‘deep’ can be relative.
That sounds reasonable, but… careful using phrases like “I have no idea”, lest deadparadox give you a sort of Internet Lashing.
Noah Cicero might be a lot of things, but funny is not one of them, not ever. Although, sometimes, he is so morose, so flat and depressed sounding, that I do find it kind of funny, I guess.
Would you define your terms?
Anyway…
I think “Deep can be relative”, put on a t-shirt, would also end up sounding dumb.
I don’t want to live in a world where we put one another’s words on t-shirts in order to kill one another egotistically. I don’t think it would be a nice way to die.
A good % of writers seem to be anti-intellectual. I have no problem with this.
Yeah, like most people over the age of 15. When’s your birthday, Stephen?
If someone wants to listen to Socrates’s accounts, they would appear to be laughable at first: they are wrapped up on the outside in such words and phrases as if in the hide of a taunting satyr. For he talks about donkeys, about such smiths and cobblers and tanners as are like pack-asses, and he appears forever to speak with the same words about these things, so that every inexperienced and thoughtless person would sneer at these accounts. But after one looks into the opened accounts, being inside them, one will discover first that they alone of conversation possess reasonableness, and then, that, being most sacred and having as many images of virtue in them and stretching the farthest – rather: that their intention is so thorough as to belong to an examination which is beauty and value.
–Alcibiades, in The Symposium (221e-222a)
probably not engaged in stylistic or literary debates […] a practical script to assist commerce
Where have there ever been people busier quarreling about what written-down things mean than in “commerce”??. Poets sometimes get frantic enough to take things outside, but $$? “It’s not personal; it’s business.” –Michael Corleone
zusya, there’s no one there – certainly: no one “honest” – to talk to.
Thanks, Noah. This was good.
obvious non-sequitur is obvious. Cute post in that irony is easy and cute (I especially enjoyed sitting on a swing for two days).
The beginning Is the most interesting:
~
Someone on my Facebook suggested that Internet Literary Writers are not intellectuals.
That they are actually anti-intellectual.
They stated that we speak nonsense.
That it isn’t helping the culture.
~
Notice the “we”, so whoever this group is it includes the narrator (or at least the narrator identifies with this group).
Also this entire discussions begins on Facebook and quickly devolves into an us vs. they construction, both of which creates a self-referencial and ironic loop.
The last sentence quoted is the thematic center, the root from which literary arguments flower. This statement leads to many vast and fascinating vistas, but irony may as well be the shadows on the cave view.
Thought provoking and a worthwhile failure.
A good % of intellectuals seem to be anti-writer. An intellectual and a hooker walk into a bar. The intellectual says, “Do you think the objectification of women is merely a learned societal paradigm, or reflective of biological and possibly even emotional necessity?” The hooker says, “Shut up or I’ll cut your throat.”
obvi troll is obvi
World War III will be the last literary argument.
What does it mean to “be intellectual?” To think? Or to have a liberal arts degree?
I dunno … but i have a real problem with the web: it tries, constantly, to interrupt concentration and prolonged discussion. the web is click-driven & advertising-funded, and always has a new bright shiny posting to dangle in front of you. it’s a bad place to try and concentrate.
that all-encompassing distraction field makes the huge difference between reading online and reading in print. (For as wide a definition of “reading” as you like.) It’s the reason why none of these HTMLGIANT forum debates really go deep or long enough: we’re all anxious to get on to the next new post.
and the way that mental noise affects a generation of writers for whom web and SMS are the normal mode of discourse, the preferred mode … you could call it an anti-intellectualizing force, sure. an anti-thinking-long-and-hard-about-things effect, yes. i wouldn’t blame the Internet Literary Writers, i’d just blame the internet.
On the other hand, some people claim to be immune to — hey, look! new post!
yes, of course, that’s makes it easy
Ah, cool: a literary war!
I kind of thought the reason discussions don’t last longer is only because people are posting too many articles. Lately, it takes no more than two days to stash a discussion. Time to move on. If you post there, nobody will see it, once it leaves the column of recent posts.
I mean… lots of new topics all the time is nice, but discussions ought to last longer than a couple of days. Oh, well, not much to be done about it, I suppose.
Mykle, for me, it’s not wanting a new post, a new stimulation/provocation/challenge/confirmation/refeudiation, but rather the empirically determined fact of new posts.
To go, say, 50 hours in, to a conversation means going ‘down’ to the next-lower segment of the master thread, perhaps two segments lower. – while genuinely interesting posts crowd in atop the newest – automatically-presented – segment.
Perhaps even more relevant: the topics that last in one’s mind (and passion) for a couple of days recur – frequently, eh? So the desire to press some particular perspective forward, even in the case of that point of view, will come up again, probably sooner than later.
Blake himself has admitted that the focus of the blog is on the articles, and not the comment-thread dialogue. . . which is the main reason I don’t read this blog much anymore.
gotta say it: “I don’t want to live in a world where we put one another’s words on t-shirts in order to kill one another egotistically. I don’t think it would be a nice way to die.” <-- belongs on a t-shirt!
wait, “also end up sounding dumb”? i meant it the first time. i’m not one of these people that goes around saying things he/she doesn’t really mean because said he/she thinks its funny to be intentionally obtuse, when in reality all it really does is spread around confusion like a dry mop pushing around cola on a wooden floor. and yeah, “deep blah blah” is a pretty stupid phrase. and did you mean for me to define “deep”? deep, adj., as in ponderous, heavy, thinkful.
dishonesty is a virulence?
Sad to say, it’s probably more important, though maybe not (even) truer, that honesty is not contagious. One can be as ‘real’ as one can be, and if the conversation partner – and I was and am referring to “no one there”, not to a local community or whole species – refuses actually to converse, that’s that.
And here, your honesty has met “define your terms” instead of ‘oh, I mistook your friendliness for snark’. QED.
Good game. “deep” = ‘relatively great and substance-filled distance from the surface to the core; relatively great distance from the surface of the core to its center’
“deep as a dime” would look cool on a t-shirt, even in a library. “deep as a t-shirt” might look even cooler.
ed.: “I’m deep like a t-shirt.”
c’est la whatever-the-fuck
No, no, I was only joking.
“Define your terms” being an ‘intellectual’ obsession, and all: I was trying to be ironic, or something.
Maybe that’s true for what Blake posts, but clearly there are posts on the site every day which exist solely as a starting point for forum chat.
Well yeah, if those topics last in the bloggers’ minds, they will recur, to some degree.
But I’m not trying to bitch & moan about HTMLGIANT. I’m here, aren’t I? Because this is actually one of the more intelligent & less pretentious corners of Teh Interwebs, and these forums are actually full of eloquent people who largely eschew trolling and flaming and name calling and all that retardation. I just wonder what all our intelligent banter amounts to, in the end, when instead of driving towards a conclusion it always ends with a gradual, invisible abandonment of attention — right around the moment when the initial post drops off the HTMLGIANT front page. So are we really here to debate, or discuss, or comment, or learn? Or are we just slaves to a kind of internet information feeding habit, where the greatest purpose of Noah Cicero’s charming & cute & vaguely confusing post is to provide a tasty pellet for lab rats, or a fix for a blog addict.
But that’s all beside the point, which was Internet Literary Writers (whoever they are) and whether or not they are anti-intellectual (whatever that is) or spout nonsense. I think as the Web has become an advertising medium, it’s gradually become repressive of comprehension, reflection & critical thinking. Not massively so, not yet, but it’s a problem, at least for me it is. Today’s Young People may be immune through overexposure. Maybe that’s what makes them Internet Literary Writers!
Long Live the Internet Literary Writers!
(cue ILW marching song.)
i guess i gotta respect the good ole college try. is there a word for trying to be ironic, but failing? (or something…) there’s gotta be,! there’s a vast (vast!) market out there crying out for the use of such a word.
iroffic?
fuck whatever la cela
or le, whatever
fuck whatever asks, tells, pursues
I don’t know; I’m sure there could be. I suppose Iroffic is as good as any.
Look, I find this problematic. Someone, somewhere, is being oppressed by your writing.
If you are referring to me (?) I agree, and do apologize. That last remark was in response to obvi troll is obvi. I think intellectual elitism, and I don’t mean solid and thoughtful crit, has done more to bloat the mainstream than Disney and internet writing is in fact an anecdote to this as it essentially removes the bar. I will cease posting snarky comments.
What on earth does “bloat the mainstream” mean?
nicely put.
lol
joan didion
tao lin and noah cicero are internet literary writers, the latter happens to also be a centipede in the darkness, which the former named him.
http://theopenend.com/2010/10/20/noah-ciceros-the-insurgent-review/