Some items loosely strung together
A new(ish) blog by a philosophy type: Delight Springs.
David Thompson points out that we’re allowed to dislike any religion. Yes, even that one.
Oliver Kamm also comments on Charlie Hebdo and free speech: “Those who claim that the state of their religious sensibilities is a justification for punishing speech have been rightly rebuffed.”
Stephen Law has an amusing post on pseudo-profundity (gee, what do you suppose put that idea in his head?).
If all your jargon is defined using other jargon, no one will ever be able to figure out exactly what you mean (though your devotees may think they know). And the fact that buried within your pseudo-profundities are one or true truisms will give your audience the impression that you must really be on to something, even if they don’t quite understand what it is.
That’s a key point, one I have not sufficiently taken into account – it is crucial to define all your jargon by means of other jargon. This way everyone enters the jargonic circle, from which escape is neither possible nor desirable.
Is the Jargonic Circle as impenetrable as the Caucasian Chalk Circle?
Take it away, Elton! –
“In the Circle of Jargon
It’s the wheel of fortune
It’s the leap of faith
It’s the band of hope
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle, the Circle of Jargon”
As any fule kno (yes Ophelia, I read your cross-post) ….
Bullshit Baffles Brains!
I’m also reminded of two quotes, one by Lord Kelvin, on measurement and understanding, and another by Aldous Huxley – the latter goes:
“The students followed him, deperately scribbling as they walked, and all the way up in the lift. ‘Moral education, which ought never, in any circumstances, to be rational,'”