How do I stir up the Cambridge Philosophy budget scoffers?

so then, you're serious about the philosophy department at Cambridge?

Lola:-

Of course I am.I'm a patriot.Philosophy has moved into the other disciplines.The Cambridge lot can't possibly keep up with scientific progress even if they wanted to.I can't see what their role is.If they have one they should explain it to us.They are using up cash and infrastructure which might be more usefully employed.The Gov't is cutting plenty of other things.Did you see Camp Dogwood?Compare that to high table.
Did you know that most of the graduates from our engineering centres of excellence are from overseas.
What do these guys at Cambridge know about biology or physics or law or politics or future oil needs or psychology or anything else that matters in this day and age.

Have you seen this old chestnut about "Are women whores?"If that's philosophy no more need be said.

Take the Global Dimming/Global Warming conundrum.Where's the guidance on that we ought to be able to expect from an elite philosophy.Where are they on oil addiction.Mainlining probably.

Sure I'm serious.Why not?

spendius.

it's ok if you are.........I just didn't know it. Gee whiz, spendius....

I don't know nuffin about Cambridge, I was born and raised in a barn.

But I agree, the philosophers I know in this country are removed from reality, but they're not the only ones......

Still do you not see a need to teach Logic or the history of philosphical thought? I'm not defending the Cambride lot, just askin.

Lola:-

There is a perfectly valid motive for trying to undermine the CPD.
They can have no argument with me because I am a fully paid up member of our dynamic culture the "only begetter" of which is the Faustian urge to overthrow the existing order of things and to do it in an orderly and civilised manner.
I will also claim that they are stuck in a rut and might as well be ancient Greeks for all we Faustians care.The reason they are stuck in a rut is simply because nobody has challenged them before and it is only to be expected that an organisation unchallenged is an organisation gone cozy and a rut of coziness is not something that anybody with even a half-assed intelligence,which I grant them,would seek to get out of.

We Faustians think the very heavens are stuck in a rut and we are off up there to stir them up.That is our way.That is the force to which you owe all the solid benefits you are accustomed to compared to the peoples of the world who stick to ruts.They also are feeling our force,That lot in the CPD will be endlessly debating the rights and wrongs of it all instead of how to go about it most efficiently.
It is the Faustian mission to fight and destroy the existent.Look at the atom.Look at the shops.The shops are cat and dog stuff all claws extended.Look at Manhattan.That is Faustian architecture goodstyle.How long did that river go rolling through to the ocean past the windswept banks where canoes were beached.A thousand years I suppose.How long did it roll before the canoes arrived.Oh well!
And in comes the destroyer of the existent and whacks it all into a more or less civilised shape where you can have meetings in blizzards and zoom up and down heated lift shafts without any disturbance to your coiffure.
You can't fault the Faustian logic can you?No Faustians and no purple hat shops.Anybody who thinks my project is impertinent is an ancient Greek.Ballast.As a beneficiary Lola,seemingly in a reasonable echelon,you could be considered to be shirking your duty to be not lending a hand.We Faustians are THE status quo and it moves.It isn't a fixed point like old fashioned status quos.I'm not sure what got it going but it is something to do with cold Northern forests I think.It might be the use of glass.I don't know.It's great don't you think.What we ought to be doing is working out how to pass it on intact and improved even and cozy,fixed status quos are never up for that.That is Faustian fundamentalism."Care for the future".There's not much of that on some of these threads.Or in the CPD.
And we can't help it.It has been hammered into our blood like the temper is hammered into hot iron by a blacksmith.Bob reckons that there's no going back."We're going all the way till the wheels fall off and burn".Bob's a Faustian.It's unstoppable.If we die it will be with our boots on.
The CPD have the jitters.You get that way when you are cozy.Coziness is anathema to pioneering.
We have no intention of fading out.
As soon as an improved high tensile metal alloy is invented the buildings get taller and a new jumbo takes to the skies.800 New York to Sydney £69.95 a bum on a seat.That's us.Jumpin' Jack Flash.And we are intolerant but demand toleration.Especially from Ancient Greeks.Our will is to reign alone.Which we will when we stop squabbling among ourselves.We believe in winners.The CPD are losers.They have lost this agument for a start.

And we took the Christian religion,which was a mere hair-split from a multitude of other mad sects in the 3rd century,and fashioned it for our use.The stuff on the threads about that is irrelevant.

Look at how world records are assailed using any and every technique,legal or otherwise.The Guiness Book of Records is pure Faustian literature.And it's a best seller and contains reports of activities which are not in the least ridiculous to a proper Faustian.

Whadcha think Lola?Are you a Faustian?

spendius.

If the fact that my coiffure was indeed mussed by the blizzard and if not the blizzard, then the hat that was necessary in order not to lose my ears to frost bite doesn't disqualify me.......then I suppose I am a Faustian, but not a Faustian Fundamentalist. But then, you might have guessed as much by reading my signature line.

I hear you've been talking bad about the good ole USA. Some folks can't take a little criticism.....another indication of a needed visit to the doctor.

I love reading your posts, spendius. They always leave me wondering if my head is on upside down.

Allo Lola:-

Another thing about having permission to eat the budget is that it results in arrogance and complacency.One would think that a dept. of philosophy would have one member at least keeping an eye out for fresh ideas from a Wcubed philosophy forum.It's as if they think they have nothing left to learn or that we amateurs have nothing of value to say or both.And all the great ones were amateurs.Ones who did it for the love of it.Plus the fact that they could function as a guide to us if it wasn't that they wouldn't get a cut of the budget.It must be just a job done with e degree of reluctance.Greatness comes from enthusiasm and patience and if they ain't great then what?

I saw your blizzard on CBS.Do you know what ladies did in blizzards before Faustians grabbed a hold.Endured is what they did and made offerings to their deity that the boys would catch a buffulo and for the fire not to go out.That was the existent.
I sometimes wonder why women don't bow to men when they pass them by.It doesn't take much to bow.

spendius.

Spendius,

I agree. If someone is spending my money, I would surely like an accounting for the value of my purchase. That's why I protest unnecessary wars. But it's not the only reason. The expenditure of life is even greater still.

And as for the bowing........

I bow and the boys say wow. But would you rather have a curtsy?

Hello Lola:-

Get a good night's snuggle.You lucky Lady.

Now what's all this about "unnecessary wars"?I'm sure everybody except members of the War party would protest such things.But what is such a war.There are probably a thousand reasons for this war most of which have never been discussed.To mop up surplus kit for example or innate (whoops) aggression .You have 300 million I read.Take average life span of 80.That gives 3 million for each year.Take innate agression to last from 16 to 60 (say) in the male half of that and you get 1.5 million times 44 which is 66 million testosterone charged whackeroonies.You could lose some with one type of homosexualist (not the Spartan type) and with apron clingers but not a lot.You still have a lot of innate agression on the loose.You can wish it away I suppose but there's nothing like a good old fashioned war to deal with it.

There is also booty to be considered.Every soldier I knew dreamed of blowing a defeated enemy's bank door off and chasing their women around.It is a tradition which goes back to the beginning of time."The riot squad are restless,they need somewhere to go."You might be trying to invent a new type of man here and if you succeed won't it spill over into aspects of your personal life.Is Mr Limpy-Wrist dirt-bike rider up for keeping New York running smoothly.It is an experiment which might work but then again it might not.I rather incline to the latter view as you might have guessed.
Your elite think tanks will already know your oil needs for the forseeable.Their domestic economic policies will factor that in along with election dates and assessments of consumer hegemonies etc and the known reserves will have been checked to see if congruence exists and if it doesn't something has to be done if voters are to remain content.I presume you understand the expression "gearing".
Simply put it means a 10% drop in turnover causes a meltdown.Mr Bush and Mr Greenspan have to manage all this and it is bound to reduce their efficiency when they have to continually be looking over their shoulder at influential but uninformed carping from axe grinders and attention seekers.
This war has a long way to go.Saddam himself called it "The Mother Of All Battles" and it is.It is the Faustians versus the non-Faustian elites.Not their masses.They will welcome us.They want to join the human race.There's frustrated Lolas all over the place and all serious change requires sacrifice.

I'm a bit busy.See you soon I hope.

spendius.

Lola:-(assuming you haven't run off).

You not a Faustian fundamentalist?!!?

Oh you are you know.

Faust sold his soul to the devil.So does Mark Twain in your signature.

And what did he sell it for?Temptations is what.Satisfactions in the here and now.Some people refer to us as "The Great Satan".

One way to say it involves the death of "soul".I hear Mahler's music as the accompanying fugue to that death.A mournful yearning over the loss.

There is an ancient Greek story about how the sound of sublimity in music presages catastrophe.
One version is Ulysees on the lyre and another is the pipes of Pan.The sound of Pan's beautiful tunes caused fear and consternation.Hence the word "panic".The best literary version I know of it is in Sir Henry Rider Haggard's The World's Desire.
And he has sistrum playing in Ayesha.This is the realm of the truly fabulous.The fable.
Is the fable the last resting place of soul?

Look at the temptations you succumb to.You probably don't know they are temptations.

"Lead us not into temptation
Deliver us from all evil."

spendius.

Spendius,

I haven't run off........I'm just working and I have a deadline.

I may be a Faustian, but I'm not a fundamentalist. Fundamentalists think literally, concretely and haven't the capacity to tolerate difficult decisions requiring considerations of complexity.

I have indeed recognized that the hereafter isn't coming, so I figure I better get what I can while I can. That means as much gratification as is possible, given constraint of environmental reality and conflicting desires. Since what I want is often in conflict with other things I want, I have to find methods of compromise (with myself.) These compromises hopefully take the form of sublimations and the use of humor. Still I'll never get everything I want. I won't live forever, for one.

Temptation connotes the concept of sin. I can hardly be sinning to wish for what I wish for, regardless of whether I can find a fair and productive way to have it or not. So I use the word gratifications rather than temptation.

Well maybe not entirely......one can be tempted by something that isn't a sin, but rather simply a conflict with other desires. So, then yes, I see that I am often tempted. Am I ever tempted!

The fable as the last resting place of the soul? Maybe. The results of the work we do while we're living is the only soul remaining when we're dead, I think. What a lovely question.

And yes, I am a lucky lady, although luck is only partially responsible for my cuddliness.

Sorry to be so uncreative a playmate for now.....but I'll get my work done and be more available soon.

I'll try to answer your post about psychoanalysis and clinical experience later when I know I have the time.

Peace, man..........<laughing>

Lovely Lola:-

Same here.I'll think about it and come back a.m.

Ever heard of a tantalus?It is a piece of furniture and a Greek mythology figure.

It struck a chord with an early post of yours and it seemed to me a good user-name for you apart from it having a masculine ending which I know you don't'.

Regards

spendius.

Lola:-

We Faustian fundamentalists don't take it literally etc.Don't mix us up with other types of fundmentalist.I have explained that our status quo is a moving point.We specialise in difficult decisions
involving complexity.When Mr Kennedy aimed at a moon landing that was a difficult decision and pure Faustian reach.If you are a watered down Faustian it is because of the toughness of the philosophy.Women generally are not Faustian.
Is not a "conflict with other desires" a possible risk to health and,as such,a potential drain on the community which might be categorised as a sin.I see a lot of inner conflict on these other threads.There's free/unfree and virtue/greed and tough/gentle and pride/humility and a lot more routes to schizophrenia.

Anyway Tantalus.It is a bit of a shaggy dog story but I'll do my best.
It began in the pub with mention of an item of furniture seen on an antiques valuation programme.The greed on that causes salivation.
It is,or rather was,a cabinet for keeping bottles of wine.It was designed to stop the servants stealing a tipple.It locked but the wine could be seen.It tantalised the servants.The toffs,being educated,called this a tantulus after a king of Lydia who was a son of Jupiter out of the nymph Pluto.He was punished by being given an insatiable thirst and then being set in water up to the chin which flowed away as soon as he attemted to drink.There are other versions.Delicious fruits which blew away when he tried to eat them.Another is that he had a large boulder set above his head suspended by a string.The best one though is him being given a raging hunger and placed before a table of delicious food which was snatched away from him as soon as he tried to eat by a host of furies.In that myth Jason caught the furies in nets and allowed Tantulus to turn the tables on them.
The reason for his torment is given variously as having stolen Jupiter's dog,having stolen the nectar and ambrosia from the tables of the gods and given it to mortals,for killing and cooking his son for a banquet for passing through gods or for gratifying his unnatural passion for Gannymede.

Now that's quite interesting don't you think?

It fits in with "a man's best friend is his dog."
It fits in with your teasing style.
It has toffs as gods.
The Abraham myth is present.
There's aspects of temptation.
The psychology of fear is in there like you have.
The homosexuality taboo.
But most of all it was a time when the matriarchy was in process of being overthrown for the patriarchy from which your comforts derive.That's the Jason one.
But the best joke is the one our toffs had.The wine is locked up.It is not for servants.Now there's a riddle for a Manhatten psychiatrist if ever I saw one.
I just love Greek mythology.All you have to do is decode it.It's the same with nursery rhymes.

Do you know Hilary Clinton?

Farenheit 9/11 was on our Ch 4 last night.I recorded it because I wanted to follow up on Tantalus and I was thirsty.I saw some of it and it looked a bit slippery at first glance.There's a fair bit of teleology.How has it gone down there?How far away were you from the WTC that doomladen day?

spendius.

"Overthrown matriarchy"!? Freud surmised (but hell, who hasn't) that we humans gained control of fire because boys just can't help themselves and have to pee on a fire. Though this actually worked in Iceland, it's tough to find evidence Siggy got it right looking way back when. You been attending some womens' studies courses, me boy?

Natch MG:-

Is there anything else?

spendius

It's tomorrow already.

A few years back, I lived in a house with a large wine room. The door was a beautiful rot iron gate type thing with curly, vine-like squiggles and clumps of black iron grapes. It was locked with a bolt lock for the purpose of keeping the teenagers out. (The servants had a key, so they were allowed from time to time.)

On discovering a large bottle of Vodka in my daughter's room, I confiscated it and locked it in the wine room. The next week end, I discovered the same bottle of Vodka in my grandson's room. So I locked it up again. When I discovered it for a third time up stairs with the kids, I asked, "how do you kids keep getting this bottle?"

My grandson said, "Oh that's easy." Their method was this: they pushed a pillow under the gate onto the hard wooden floor, and, using a long handled broom, they knocked the bottle off the shelf onto the pillow and then pulled the pillow and bottle over to the gate. Once within their reach, they could pass it from one hand to another and take it out over the top of the gate. So much for Tantalus. I deserve a congratulations for a job well done in child rearing, don't you think?

And as for me being toffish......I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm a social worker. I've been poor and I've been rich. I can tell you that no matter from which perspective I've seen the world, there are pros and cons for all arguments, including the ones I'm arguing against. So no fundamentalism for me. I'm a committed Faustian, female or not. Just call me Faustia Tantala. And look out.

Hi Faustia Tantala (I'm watching out now).

I've seen monkeys doing that stunt with bananas.

I don't know about "so much for Tantalus" though.It was a riddle I tested you with.In fact it was two.It was a little sneaky smirk I was at.I was hoping you would twig it and was looking forward to how you would discreetly respond.It also referred to that early post of yours about dangling the temptations before your men and snatching it away at the last minute.In fact it was a web of jokes.I am quite proud of it.I hope you don't think I relate stories just for the sake of it.There is a very profound meaning in there.Really.Reich would have appreciated it.

We had a cellar.

Tis rather odd seen from a distance.Daughters with vodka who are too young and grandsons with rooms and fluent speech and you allowing bottles of vodka to get into their hands.You maybe underestimate your progeny.And how come they hadn't drunk it?If I had gone to those lengths to get at it I'd have had a swig or two.I'm not sure you deserve congratulations on this one.Although I expect you do on other fronts.

I apologise for getting your occupation wrong.It must be due to my stupidity coupled with a dash of wishful thinking.

I've seen Farenheit 9/11 now.As movies go it is dire in the extreme.Moore acts as if there is only one explanation for events and its his.As a polemic against the war it is a gnat.Mr Bush knows that his opponents are lightweights.They could,for example,organise a consumer strike and there's no way that could be illegal.Just quit the luxury to show solidarity with the troops.Mr Bush knows that his opponents couldn't do it to which a shrug is the only response.
But there's deeper reasons than even that.

spendius.

spendius,

Tomorrow is one deadline.....I'll have some time on Tuesday. Until then keep those folks at the pub in line for me.

P.S. I am a psychoanalyst, but I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm a graduate of an institute of the American Psychoanalytic Association. My graduate degree in social work is from Columbia University.

MG:-

Yes."Overthrown matriarchy".The matriarchy is said to have lasted at least 2 million years.The patriarchy began to nip at it's heels (down boyo) only about five thousand years ago which is a nothing time scale by comparison.The lady "journalists" you are exercised with in another place are something of a hormonal reaction tickled into action by parents of girls who find the power source of the real matriarchy somewhat distasteful.
Unlike "barge mistresses" who are the real thing.

spendius.

that's me.......I'm a closet barge mistress!

Hi spendius....you're up early or . . . . . oh, I see, it's me that's up early.

Lola:-

He may have meant"large mistress"and stuck his finger in the wrong place through shuddering.