"YOUNG FOOL: HOW HUMILIATION HELPS HIM"
[Note that the following exchange, between a white male high-school senior from the suburbs and myself, concerns the 8:24 pm EST DECLARATION of CINCINNATIAN CATHOLICISM on Smoke and Bounce from Thursday, April 11, 2013.]
K____: I can see where you're coming from with all this but I think the points are somewhat confused. As in I don't think someone could easily pick up on it and understand
{snip}
K____: Well I hope you don't mind if I extend the argument a bit... Some of this sounds kind of elitist. And some of it sounds pretty racist. Also I'm not sure where your source material is coming from. Biological taxonomy is intrinsic to evolution. All living things are classified the way they are because over millions of years we have separated into different forms, exactly the same way a family tree might branch out into different surnames. That's why lions and cats are considered related, the same way I'm related to my cousin though her surname differs from mine. So, in essence, yes, cheetahs are technically related to cacti, in the sense that they share the same origin of life which is the planet we call earth. But by those means an African and a Korean would be twin brothers as they're both human. There's my view on the biological aspect. From a cosmic aspect, consider that perhaps life itself functions on an infinite scale. Planets and galaxies, too, function just as a human body, but on scales far larger than our comprehension.
Neil: k____, no offense, but you either need to lay off the weed, or reread the essay more carefully and slowly to understand what i'm really saying, or get your education into high-gear so you can start thinking independently and take the poisonous officialism out of how you interpret language -- probably all 3.
K____: I took a break from smoking several weeks ago, so that's a non-issue. Don't underestimate the education of others. My points are just as valid as yours as I'm basing them on concrete knowledge--the points I make are simply built upon I've derived from the four AP courses I've taken this year. I think that qualifies as independent thinking. I interpret the English language as it's meant to be interpreted. I don't believe there's anything 'poisonous' about reading an author's words in the way an audience would read anything. If anyone is at fault for a misinterpretation, it's the author for not explaining himself more clearly. If anything, perhaps you need to explain more in-depth--on a level that someone aside from yourself can make sense of. I don't know where your source material is coming from. I've read the essay twice and things are still inconclusive. I am not asserting that you are incorrect, but a great deal of this sounds like a rejection of reality. Biological taxonomy is considered fact because there is an overwhelming amount of evidence supporting it. Again, I can't be blamed for being unable to make sense of any of this. I can come to believe and understand only what can be explained to me. If you can paraphrase your concept to a level that a normal intelligent person can understand, this may be simpler. Believe me, I would like to see where you are coming from, but I only sense a lack of acceptance for outside knowledge.
Neil: k____, there are so many philosophical errors in what you just emailed to me that only a pedant would try to catalogue them all. i am not going to split corkscrewed pubic hairs; that is below me. AP courses don't qualify or enable intellectual independence any more than some ghetto kindergarten class does, necessarily. you need to get over that. blaming the author? if the author is lying or confabulating, well, that is one thing, but there is certainly no duty of the author's to mince words no matter what -- not in a million years. you are treading on a slippery slope of encouraging the degeneration of america into functional illiteracy. you scare me. you scare me because you even RE-emphasize that you want to be taught like a baby by someone instead of taking the responsibility of challenging yourself. i'm not expecting you to be perfect, but that's not what reading and interpretation is all about, anyway. taxonomy is a legitimate TOOL in science, not an axiomatic fact, or even an inducable fact in any way. anyone who says otherwise is completely ignorant of some of the most basic elements of the biological sciences. if you are well-versed, k____, then you are insane. if you are normal, then you are uneducated.
K____: What? Are you serious right now? There is no such thing as a philosophical error. Philosophy doesn't work that way. You have yet to explain how or why you are right and I am erroneous. I know what you're going to say. Oh! There it is! A third time. Well I'm going to keep insisting, because it actually makes perfect sense to me as it probably would any other normal person. I honestly have no idea where you are drawing your logic from, but I'm absolutely baffled by it. Does your concept of 'intellectual independence' entail a complete rejection of reality? Because it seriously sounds like it does. And yes, actually, an author is quite responsible for ensuring that his readers understand, otherwise that author is just a rambling lunatic. You have some incredibly warped logic, to the point where I believe you should seek help... I think if you observed the intellectual tendencies of everyone on this planet, you would realize that everyone--EVERYONE--is just as 'uneducated' as you think that I am. I am an integrated member of society. I can confirm all of these things. Any psychologist would likely classify you as batshit insane long before they would say a word about me. It seems to me that your guiding principle is that you are right and everyone else is wrong: we call that stubbornness.
Neil: k____, that email you just sent me was even more freakish, grotesque, and perversely shrill and adolescent than the last. and you scared me a shitload more. i am very afraid that one day some fraudulent college will give you a degree and some idiotic employer will admit it as a qualification and thus empower you to have any sort of power. you should be put in a cage to purge yourself of your lunacy. it's disgusting; you're a white person and you have looks, and so some shit-head running an institution that has sociological consequences will probably give you a benefit of the doubt you absolutely do not deserve. what is wrong with you arrogant young people today? your idiotic teachers and parents raise you to believe that you've insight on the very day of your birth! jesus H christ. you ought to be humiliated in front of a classroom of pedophiles or something.
K____: Goddamn. You really are out of your fucking mind. You should try going outside. Do you even know how a normal human being behaves? And I'd prefer you don't insult my teachers and parents. Your age has made you no wiser than I am. I'm 18 years old and more cognitivey functional than you likely ever will be. A jury of ten thousand would confirm it. You're off you're rocker, and honestly, this should scare you, because it's not just me you've got to worry about. It's everyone. Welcome to reality, Neil. You're right, some 'fraudulent' college known as the Ohio State University is going to give me a degree along with over 6000 like-minded individuals. Did you even go to high school?
Neil: k____, reverse order: i'm not going to acknowledge names of institutions of "learning". it's all meaningless. you should go to a used bookstore if you sincerely want to learn something. now, as for your talk of "normal", and "6,000", and "jury of ten-thousand", and "everyone" [just look at your own words] it's obvious that you do not think independently or originally because you "discern" truth by means of a democratic method. that's just stupid. if you are committed to sheepdom, i can't stop you, but i advise against it if you want to live a full and satisfying life, and i also suggest you learn humility. sorry if i truly insulted your parents and teachers, who in your particular case may be some excellent people -- i'm not saying i know for sure, but sure as hell, to me, you are shaming them and representing them as fools. all the best.
K____: No... that's really not the case. If education were meaningless, our world would fall into complete and utter chaos. If I am not an independent thinker, then please, tell me what the fuck you think independent thinking is. If you think it's a complete dismissal of all that our past has taught us, then you are lost. The sheltered environment you have lived in has left you cognitively dysfunctional. Again I ask: did you even go to high school?
{snip}, {snip}
Neil: ok, k____, now that the humiliation is over with, let's back up to where this pissing match started -- you said, quote: "Well I hope you don't mind if I extend the argument a bit... Some of this sounds kind of elitist. And some of it sounds pretty racist. Also I'm not sure where your source material is coming from."
get it straight, k____: tones of "elitism" and "racism" [your charges of which, by the way, i take serious offense to], whether or not they are really in fact contained in an essay, have NO BEARING on the validity of the essay's substance. period, plain and simple. every self-respecting, educated man knows this, including -- and ESPECIALLY! -- in ARGUMENTS. you specifically called my essay an "argument" by claiming you were extending it. read your own words.
now, okay, you want source material? even though the relativity of taxonomy is widely accepted by genuine scientists, i will provide you with a source: John R Baker, 1974. i dare you to read it.
it seems to me that the major tap root of your aversion to my essay is your misunderstanding of what taxonomy is. taxonomy is a tool and/or method, not a factual claim. claims and methods may depend one upon the other in the physical sciences, but they are nouns of entirely different natures and etymological roots. that is a profound mix-up you have going on in your head, k____. i was astounded by it, yet at the same time i was bored by it, because 99% of people are morons, and when an intellectual gets older he may adopt a greater tendency toward dismissiveness toward the ignorant, even though they may be natively bright and have potential. if you are actually bright, then i apologize for my mistake.
still, like it or not, i've done you a big favour these past 2 days. but i also thank you for the opportunity to help a youth.
[end of exchange]
AFTERWORD
It should be clear to the S&B fan upon having read this transcript that it was I, Neil JW, who was essentially fair, accurate, and honest, and that it was K____ who underwent the said "humiliation". My wondering is that schools today may likely be overemploying the Socratic method in the classroom. The Socratic method has the potential to delude the immature, who might conclude that either their mistakenness is just another version of a relativistic truth, or that the insufficiency of their reasoning had always had the qualifications necessary to complete or validate them from the very beginning, when in fact the teacher's facilitation was absolutely needed to advance the indispensable developments toward the truths in circumstantial question. My personal conclusion is that sometimes a teacher ought to simply say that the student is basically just wrong, and explain using the knowledge and reasoning powers at his disposal just precisely why the student is wrong concerning the topic. What kind of "professional" teachers or professors are we training in 2013? Professional mollycoddlers? I ask this earnestly because the symptoms seem already manifest to me, coming from a damn SENIOR in high-school! Does anyone in the industry -- and it truly often is an industry in the most cynical sense -- have any words on this matter? -- nah, didn't think so...
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