Oh, wait, I'm going to change the post title.
ummm....
is this a preview of the Chicago meet-up?
I became much less apprehensive about watching this when I saw that it had been posted by LB, not apo.
Wow, LB, I wish I could share that with my son, but he's away this week on a class trip. That rocked.
I'm only halfway through, but it's a little upsetting.
Keep watching, heebie. It gets better.
Wow, okay. Amazement is trumping wimpy girly heartedness.
Totally watch the WHOLE thing.
Normally, I'm all about rooting for the predators, but you have to admire that come-from-behind water buffalo tenaciousness.
Oh, yay. The end is the best part. I reclaim my mushy wimpy heart.
I can't really watch from the office, but aren't those Cape buffalo?
11 "water" s/b "some kind of"
Still, the video's pretty cool. Kinda like the African version of Pirates vs. Ninjas.
The coolest bit is the crocodile almost snatching away the calf.
Unbelievable. Wow. Also, I now believe all sociobiology claims.
Point being that Cape buffalo are some seriously kick-ass bovines. Not your father's Holstein at all.
You know those lionesses are going hungry, now.
I'm sure they found some tasty eland, or something.
18: Why do you have to be such a downer, slol? Fucking immigrant.
Lionesses should really be the ones called "lions," while lions get called "he-lions," or something.
In conclusion, "or something".
Lion-drones. But the manes are pretty; I could see dragging home the occasional antelope for someone who (mutatis mutandis) looked like that.
Cape Buffalo are supposed to be pretty rough-and-tumble individually (for a definition of "rough-and-tumble" taking into account the fact that hunters in Africa used to regularly carry .600 caliber rifles). I'd really rather avoid confronting a freaking Homeowners Committee of them.
22: 'Cuz eating grass kinda sucks when you only have one stomach.
Cape buffalo are supposed to be the second-most dangerous game.
24: They do say it's good to be the king.
26: All those animals share one stomach? That's amazing.
Where did I see the video recently of a bunch of lionesses being abused by a pack of hyenas until a he-lion came storming in, all superhero like, to run off the hyenas? It was pretty theatrical, what with the mane and all.
29: They stuff it with oats and offal, and call it haggis.
The big African and Asian buffalo are pretty much always in the top three most dangerous game. Ridiculously difficult to kill, and have no qualms about charging.
17: And reputed to lay ambushes for hunters in heavy brush by circling back around their trail. IIRC all the "White Hunter" memoirs from the '20s and 30's claim the C.B. as the most dangerous game.
Nothing is sadder than a buffalo with qualms.
Fuck, I couldn't quite figure out how to make the haggis joke work and LB pwned me.
You know how a topologist captures a cape buffalo?
(Get ready to groan.)
He builds a fence around himself and defines it to be the outside.
no qualms about charging
Same is true of my daughter. That's why I took away her credit card.
"I've always thought," said Rainsford, "that the Cape buffalo is the most dangerous of all big game."
For a moment the general did not reply; he was smiling his curious red-lipped smile. Then he said slowly, "No. You are wrong, sir. The Cape buffalo is not the most dangerous big game." He sipped his wine. "Here in my preserve on this island," he said in the same slow tone, "I hunt more dangerous game."
36: I groaned! Well, actually, it was more of a rueful smirk.
When I was in the Serrengetti, our guide looked out over the massive herd of grazing animals, and said: "1,000,000 buffalo, and not one of them will die of old age..."
Where did I see the video recently of a bunch of lionesses being abused by a pack of hyenas until a he-lion came storming in, all superhero like, to run off the hyenas?
In an idle daydream after the no-call from the lifeguard?
okay, so what the hell kind of body-armor is that baby buffalo wearing? You get your head chewed on by four or five lions, your legs bitten by several crocodiles, pulled in two directions, surrounded by teeth and claws--and then walk away?
I mean, jesus, that's impressive.
furthermore, i totally hope the baby buffalo files for an IIED charge, naming Jane Lionesses 1-5 in the suit. i mean, along with the assault charges of course.
In an idle daydream after the no-call from the lifeguard?
Nice, but I found it. Unfortunately, the editing makes it suspect.
No, you're right, DS, that is where I saw it.
Here's one where the pregnant mother takes on a pack of males and wins.
Did a hike in the Serengeti back in March - had to be accompanied by an armed ranger at all times b/c of the buffalo.
So if I watch this video will PK cry?
Damn derivative English departments: "always already" isa Heideggerism.
I thought Heidegger wrote in German.
I was hoping for a reference to Kipling's The Elephant's Child around 3:15.
("3:15" means "3 minutes and a quarter before the end of the thing" because of YouTube's funny clock.)
He builds a fence around himself and defines it to be the outside.
There's a whole webpage of jokes on this order. Another way is to invert a sphere around himself or something.
The best way, though not open to topologists, is to take a semi-permeable membrane—permeable by everything except Cape Buffalo—and drag it across the region of interest.
I prefer to harvest their souls. Which feat I accomplish with my camera. They're superstitious bastards.
What I would do is use a watering hole coated with kangaroo anti-cape buffalo monoclonal antibody to pull down the cape buffalo, and then filter the supernatant.
60: So what of Heidegger's has Spivak translated?
English departments: immer schon Schlampen.
58, 67: You know, there's a reason I think everything's about me, people.
Given the prominence "immer schon" has on google (3x the hits "always already" has, and those hits seem all to be academic, which is not the case with the "immer schon" hits), I wouldn't be surprised if it weren't at all unusual in german; "always already" may only be Heideggerese in English. Or maybe Germans are just smarter than the rest of us.
So what of Heidegger's has Spivak translated?
I don't get it. Spivak translates Derrida, no?
"always already" - well, yeah. Heideggerian, ogged. "Heideggerism" is painful.
70—precisely, my dear whatever you are. Precisely.
Maybe Germans are just more jargony even than lit theory people. Which is saying something.
Stop oppressing me, parsimon. It is Heidegerrian, but it's also (unless Sifu's link is right about Kant) a Heideggerism (in English, as Ben points out).
69: I don't know about "immer schon," but "schon wieder" ("already again") is a fairly common German idiom. I think that, basically, "schon" is more of a generic intensifier in German than "again" is in English.
Ogged is actually not an academic and yet he is familiar with this nonsense? Impossible.
76: "already again" doesn't seem redundant in the same way.
77: f'real, huh?
Kieran Setiya has a blog? Apparently his new book (Reasons without Rationalism) is quite good.
Er, rather, "'Schon' is more of a generic intensifier in German than 'already' is in English."
Also, I went to school with adam leeds, and somewhat agree with his analysis; it's not a statement of essence, as I've understood it, but a claim that at no point is or could it have been the case that F was not G (which sounds like a statement about essences but needn't be interpreted that way—more like, at every point you come across it, already!).
71: Whatever I am. All but dissertation grad stupendous, ex. Phil of Language, Wittgenstein, Political Theory, Heidegger.
Sure. There's the thought that literary theory persons have appropriated philosophical thinking that they don't properly understand. Things haven't changed?
"Whatever you are" because I didn't know whether to put "sir" or "madam".
It makes sense that Heidegger is constantly saying "always already" because he thinks the hermeneutic circle is always being vindicated: we started here, and wound up here, but we can see that where we wound up was always already implied in where we started, which vindicates where we started, see?
Kieran Setiya has a blog?
Keep up, Ben. You're an academic now, you have to know these things.
84: MANDOM!
Every thread on unfogged is always already about philosophy or lit theory, isn't it?
Sylvia agreed with 18 -- her take was "poor lions, now they will starve."
Blogs are a little infra dig for academics, don't you think, ogged?
You'll need to consult the facts, young Ben.
Facts are a little infra dig for artists such as I, don't you think, ogged?
As it's oft been said, Eheu fugaces!
Bleh, you are all beyond me. Ben, I'm female.
Heidegger's always already is not something that needs to be "vindicated." I don't know what that's about.
I hate that Ben mentioned Davidson. Now I have to think. I'm well acquainted with Davidson's work, and now you're going to annoy me if I'm supposed to see how ogged's blab is supposed to sound like Davidson.
Can't we just pretend they're wildebeest? Because then I could make this comment:
Wow, wildebeest are some kick-ass animals. Who gnu?
Thanks, big cats, I'll be here all week. Try the Cape buffalo!
After watching the video, am I allowed to saythis again?
No need -- you can just link to your prior saying of it.
Heidegger's always already is not something that needs to be "vindicated."
I like how you think, you old coot, but I was offering an olive branch to young Ben over an argument about the use of etymology that we had in the reading group; I'd link, but I don't seem to have uploaded the comment template for the reading group blog.
But ogged, that's misdirected in two ways:
1. It has nothing to do with etymology.
2. I have no quarrel with "always already" anyway.
It's related to etymology insofar as the etymology of the word are often Heidegger's starting point for an inquiry into a concept, so is often how the hermeneutic circle is manifested in his work. You found that unsatisfying at the time, I was being playful in this thread about Heidegger needing to vindicate himself (in light of your objections, see?).
That verb agreed with the subject in the pre-edited version of the comment.
If your comment came pre-edited, what did you have to go and modify it for?
(That's like washing pre-washed trousers.)
Oh my god, you people are nerds. Lions! Hunting and biting shit! And you're talking about Heidegger?
I echo kid bitzer's question in 44 -- do those particular lions just completely suck at killing, or is that buffalo the last son of Krypton?
BTW, with reference to the hat tip, could we please just call her the Other Megan or something? That pseud and the commenters it attracts do a lot to undermine whatever it is that makes me keep looking at her site every now and then.
108: The lions may just be young and inexperienced; I think I remember some of the people in the video mentioning something like that.
101: Mutual old coot, I like you too.
That said, Steven Mulhall's work, referred to in Sifu's link at 74, which I didn't read closely -- Mulhall does some good work. I don't have the attention right now to see exactly what the snark about him there is, but fuckit, I could wander over to my bookshelves. He's Cavellian. 'nuff said. Pretty good at it.
Lions! Hunting and biting shit! And you're talking about Heidegger?
If they'd been hunting and biting Harry Potter, there'd be about 900 comments in this thread by now.
And for all we know, the calf walked off and died. But I figure that between pulling it out of the water, and away from the croc, they didn't have a chance to eat it, and animals have tough hides anyway.
Mature lions use etymology to bring down Buffalo.
Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo etymology.
Curses, 116 beat me to my planned next post.
"If and only if" isn't emphatic. Is our continentalists learning?
114: If etymology is all they've got, my money's on Buffalo in the preseason.
"If and only if" isn't emphatic. Is our continentalists learning?
I was embarrassed by that.
But I'm trying to hate on all academics equally these days, so perhaps I should have been cheered by that. I laughed heartily at that, then.
Mutual old coot, I like you too.
Well, this is a tender moment, isn't it? Now we're either blogmarried or you're banned. I need to consult the Founding Documents.
110:
The lions may just be young and inexperienced; I think I remember some of the people in the video mentioning something like that.
They probably just spent all their time listening to hiphop and smoked weed while all the ambitious young lions were working hard in disembowelling class.
DIdn't Derrida defer the always-already to the never-yet?
I think that that should be "the always not yet".
'Scuse you.
parsimon is banned!
Standpipe, I'm eating a delicious concoction of roasted eggplant, tomatoes, pesto, parmesan, red peppers and fresh mozzarella. Baked in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes until bubbly.
You'll have to explain my bannerment, because I'm totally incapable of understanding it.
Also, fuck off.
Unarrest! Unarrest!
Oh, mein kameraden! Of course, as mammalian top predators, our sympathies should lie with the lions, but the solidarity expressed by the Cape Buffalo is so moving! Someone should do a mashup of that video and footage from the G8 protests in Rostock.
Until the lions have their own YouTube, stories of the hunt will always glorify the buffalo.
I have always already fucked off.
I'm with parsimon in 94 - confused about what in 85 was supposed to be Davidsonian.
The world record for "always already" always already belongs to Gayatri Spivak, whose introduction to Derrida's Of Grammatology contains at least twelve.
Piker. Allen Grossman could manage twice that many in a single lecture.
My own philosophy is always already about the "never-never."
My own philosophy is always already about the "never-never."
Does Captain Hook feature prominently?
The hermeneutic circle is always being vindicated, we couldn't possibly be massively wrong about each other or ourselves, "the principle of charity begins at home" (that is actually Rorty on Davidson), blah blah, extremely nonspecific family resemblance.
Y'all can just always already fuck off with SB.
He of the Medicine Show?
The very same. Hey, I'm watching two cops frisk a SUV right outside my window! (Ok, apparently they let the driver off with a warning.)
141: how do you frisk a car? "Please stand against the wall with your legs apart and arms up, inanimate piece of machinery."
Oh, I see. It's a viral marketing thing for the Transformers movie.
138: Ben, for what it's worth, you got my attention. Rorty on Davidson I'd have to review. "Vindication" is still a little alarming.
138: Ah. I think Rorty doesn't really understand Davidson. But maybe I just don't understand Rorty.
w-lfs-n, vindex of hermeneutics.
This post's title has been repeated before my eyes frequently enough for it to start transforming into "Hakuna Metadata".
(Or rather, "Hakuna Metadata My Ass".)
how do you frisk a car?
Hm. Block it's path with two patrol cars flashing their lights, followed by two cops who leap out and shine flashlights into the interior? There's probably a better word for that, I know, but nothing else comes to mind.
Block it's path
It's as if it's 2003 again…
There's the thought that literary theory persons have appropriated philosophical thinking that they don't properly understand.
Yes, that thought would belong to philosophers who don't understand what it is that literary theory people are doing with the philosophers they're using. Which is: not philosophy.
Block it's path
No, it's 2007. I'm just too drunk to distinguish between "its" and "it's." Shameful, isn't it?
What's your point, young Ben? The middle panel is *obviously* cooler than the other two.
You know what's the worst thing about a buffalo charging?
The buffalo bills.
40: That's in a collection of short stories my father had around the house, along with a few of those "White Hunter" books I mentioned. There's a psychological mystery never to be solved 'cause all the people involved are dead or senile. If ever there was a man totally unsuited to dealing the untamed outdoors, it was my father, and I can't recall any other indications of that sort of fantasy.
(I was going to mention that plot being almost as popular as Boy + Girl but I see Wikipedia got there first)
150:
Yes, that thought would belong to philosophers who don't understand what it is that literary theory people are doing with the philosophers they're using. Which is: not philosophy.
B's replying to something I wrote, so I reply against my better judgment.
No, B., some of us in philosophy understand perfectly well what you guys are doing. Some of us actually have read literary theory, critical theory, political theory, and don't find it beyond our ken. Why do you use the term "using"?
I'll try not to be immensely annoyed by your "Not philosophy" remark, because I have a feeling you have no idea what philosophy is.
Anyway, the link in 152 crashed my browser.
Philosophy's just another word for nothing left to lose.
Which guys? I'm not a theory head.
Anyway, my point wasn't that philosophers can't understand lit crit, it was that the "it's not philosophy" argument is silly.
Dudes, I'm problematizing the diegetic right now.
Try drinking coffee; always works for me.
158:
I suspect all the philosophers want is not to have their work misappropriated. This does happen in literary theory in particular. It's sort of a stupid argument, because we know it happens. The objection then is not that "it's not philosophy," but that it's bad philosophy.
So I finally got to watch it and holy crap! Not just lions hunting and biting shit, but playing tug-o-war with a crocodile! And flying through the air off the horns of a pissed-off buffalo! And a whole big crowd of pissed-of buffalo! That is some damned fine entertainment.
I hope those tourists tipped the shit out of their safari guide.
Man, I'm going to regret entering into this, but:
Could bad philosophy be decent---or at least thought-provoking---something else?
I promise that if I ever borrow any of your philosophy, Parsimon, I'll ask first. And I'll make sure I'm wearing it properly before I leave the dorm.
B, this snark is barely tolerable.
If you dress yourself in your thinking, so be it. I don't.
Parsimon,
I love it when you get all philosophy-bitchy. Why don't you come over sometime and I can put my thing in your itself?
Next time you want to jump my shit, Parsimon, please do me the favor of telling me what kind of response you'd prefer. I'll try to keep in mind that my intellectual frivolity is unflattering.
B don't apologize. Frivolity is your metier.
This, also, is unfogged, after all.
You guys are fighting over me, aren't you?
167, your invocations of the dong-an-sich are not true philosophy.
171: Only as a synechdoche. Unfogged ain't big enough for the two of us.
(That's a joke, by the way. I'm cool with Parsimon. James B. Shearer, on the other hand....)
B., I'd prefer a non-frivolous response. Next time this comes up. Which I hope is never.
PERSONAL ANIMUSSES REVEAL'D
Parsimon you could just ban her, if you like.
Unfogged ain't big enough for the two of us.
I am given to understand that Ogged, on the other hand, is.
177 would be better without the "IM"
A non-frivolous response to 156? Like, should I quote you the dictionary definition of philosophy or defensive say that I have *too* read Kant?
You're joking, right?
179: No, no, that's Labs. Ogged's cock is all emo and shit.
I won't be goaded into defending the size of my
"animusses", ST.
I thought cerebrocrat was referring more to ogged's receptive capacity.
183: there's always room to grow.
[ link to goatse redacted, because some random dude yelled at me for being NSFW last night ]
I am not going to butt fuck Ogged. Labs is taller than me and I bet he could beat me up.
there's always room to grow.
Well then, hakuna matata my ass.
I was disappointed that the animals didn't all come together in song. I guess I should have paid attention in bio class instead of watching all those Disney movies the nights before the tests.
I meant to write "join"; if anyone makes the obvious jokes, they'll be as unfunny as Sarah Silverman.
181:
A non-frivolous response to 156? Like, should I quote you the dictionary definition of philosophy
You are not paying attention. The question was whether literary theory departments appropriate certain philosophers without really understanding them. Yes. Heidegger, yes. Austin in particular, yes, speech act theory.
Everybody knows this. It's not awfully hard to find people who realize that there's a lot of retread Heidegger in Derrida. And badly executed.
When I ask for a non-frivolous response, I'm asking for you to just acknowledge that instead of indignantly, or cavalierly, defending your space. If you're not a theory person, maybe you don't know this. Though.
But as ben notes, I'm getting philosophy-bitchy, I suppose.
I answered this in some kind of spirit of fairness, answer the question. I don't like the tone.
Derrida was a philosopher, not a literary theorist, though, so not the best example for your case.
Parsimon, dear, I just emailed you, but it was to an email address other than the one you're now showing.
Parsiomon and ogged vs. w-lfs-n and b!
Let's get ready to ruuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmble!
I assert my independence in this fight.
And my answer was pretty much what JM asked, rhetorically, 164. I think that what literary theorists have done with their misappropriated philosophy has led to some really interesting ways of reading literature. And while I certainly understand the irritation of other people not understanding one's discipline, I think that the "English departments are soooo stupid and shouldn't use things they don't understand" line of argument is, as you say, old hat. It's also beside the point and kinda juvenile. You guys don't want to take Derrida seriously as a philosopher, I don't care. If the stuff he's said has been interesting and useful for literary studies, then it's been useful and interesting for literary studies.
If that's cavalier of me, then fine; I'm cavalier. I like the cavaliers.
" I like the cavaliers."
They have a long way to go, but yeah, King James can really turn it on, seems like.
If we just linked to the Valve/Weblog blogspat it would leave more time for buttsex.
The funny thing is that in the Valve/Weblog blogspats, I think I'm always on the supposedly anti-frivolous side. But that's because Adam is, in fact, frivolous; it's just that no one gets his jokes.
This has been such a strange day on the site. The Harry Potter post blows up into a discussion of racism in fiction, and the baby buffalo video turns into a litcrit vs. philosophy deathmatch. What is wrong with you people? It's because you've all had sex with each other, isn't it?
I can say with reasonable confidence I haven't had sex with anybody here.
Wait, I actually totally can't.
Well, that's freaky.
It's just a joke, ST. Nobody's actually had sex with anyone else.
201: but, I mean, we could, right? Totally no strings attached. Let me know, but I should tell you right off the bat it might take me a long time to finish: I masturbated a lot as a kid.
Oh my god, Sifu, that was *you*? I totally pictured you as taller from your pseudonym.
I finally got to watch that damn video, and I feel sorry for the lions.
You and I have different opinions in re Kotsko's frivolity, it seems.
I think Kotsko enjoys frivolity as much as the next person. I don't think our opinions on that front differ very much.
Nobody's actually had sex with anyone else.
It really does feel like some days, doesn't it, Standpipe? Keep hope alive, though.
Wait, I think we've had sex, Tim. Let me check the hoohole.
Be careful that the hoohole does not also check you.
ogged has a prolapsed chiasmus.
I finally watched the video and holy shit! Those are some huge and massively pissed-off buffalo! Those lions needed a liger on their side.
Ben's "Why don't you come over sometime and I can put my thing in your itself?" line is not getting praised or damned enough. That line practically deserves its own sexual harrassment seminar.
Un-frivolously:
It's not awfully hard to find people who realize that there's a lot of retread Heidegger in Derrida.
Well, it's not awfully hard to find people who think this. It's always struck me (sorry parsimon) as being one of those dead giveaways of this sort of mentality.
Philosophy departments generally don't have a good record for being perspicacious about what is actually wrong in literary departments; how many literary departments can you name in which Austin and speech-act theory actually are hot properties, for instance?
Philosophy departments generally don't have a good record for being perspicacious about what is actually wrong in literary departments; how many literary departments can you name in which Austin and speech-act theory actually are hot properties, for instance?
I hope I didn't give the impression that I'm at war with literary departments in general. Not at all. As for Austin being a hot property, not really; however, I have been to more than one talk in a lit. department in which Austin was bandied about, and I thought: gawd, that's not Austin! It's not unlike hand-wavy references to "language games," when it's pretty clear that the speaker has, at best, inherited bastardized notions of Wittgenstein rather than having read him him- or herself.
Bear in mind that I'm no longer in the academy anyway; I just got a bug up my butt last night.
Oh, and I know Derrida is a philosopher. That was glib of me.
Transcendentalism, and I think Coleridge, are misappropriations of Kant. No blood, no foul.
Coleridge's poetry isn't, but he wrote some theoretical stuff too that could plausibly be called philosophy.
217: Is he taught in philosophy departments? As such? (And actually I've read some of that theoretical stuff.)
Thanks JM, I agree it's a hard line to draw. I struggled with Biographia Literaria in grad school—it was much admired where I was—and I think Coleridge thought he was doing philosophy.
219--
b wins a few points towards her philosophy merit badge by using the qualifier "as such".
In an important sense, most of the High Romantic Literary Canon is basically a giant misappropriation of Kant. Or Hegel, if you're fixated on the Jena school. I don't really see the point of policing the disciplinary boundaries (which were arising precisely at this period) with too much vehemence. Wellek was one of the few lit-crit people with the training and breadth to track all of the influences down, and since he was a giant dick to everyone, he hasn't really had any successors.