Wednesday, June 24, 2020

"Behind the chiliasm of modern man, is the megalomania of self-infinitization."


From 2017. I've changed the ending a bit. Lemmy now gets the last word.

I keep thinking of this as a primer: easy to understand, almost obvious, like a lecture in images. I could run down the references and conflicts it it describes point by point. But I think no one gets the joke. And that's why Lemmy gets the last word.

Ubiquitous images of modernity: the grid and the individual imagination; universalism and one point perspective; ideologies of objectivity and subjectivity; fantasies of reason and resulting psychosis; rationalism and irrationalism, but also rationalism vs empiricism, pedants vs ironists, philosophers vs comedians and lawyers.
My lords, ladies and gentleman, we are here also to honour Mr. Fred Timson, leader of the Timson clan, that vast family of South London villains, petty thieves and receivers of stolen property. But, no violence in your record Fred right?
That’s right Mr. Rumpole. 
Mr. Timson conducts his life according to strict monetarist principles. 
So I do Mr Rumpole.
He does not believe in the closed shop. He believes that shops should be open at all hours of the night, preferably with a jemmy.   
Too right Mr Rumpole! 
But, without Fred Timson and his like, how many of us would be out of work? How many brother judges? How many of Her Majesty’s counsel learned in  law? How many Coppers? How many humble Old Bailey Hacks? Indeed, we may all be bundled out under the embankment in cardboard boxes…So my lords, ladies and gentleman, charge your glasses, Henry, fill'em up! I give you a toast to Fred Timson and the criminals of England!
The Museum of Capitalism. The quote is Daniel Bell.
I have to keep trying.

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