John Holbo Profile picture
19 Apr, 6 tweets, 2 min read
New OBZ! Some delicate color here - lest one think Nietzche feels only contempt for these derpy denizens of the town. Do not these spots of color indicate an earnest wish on Z's, hence N's, part that the organ grinder not merely have his organs ground? 1/ onbeyondzarathustra.com/copy-of-gdfd-p…
Speaking of which! There is no 'team' in 'intestinal', but there is an 'I' and a 'test'. We are really getting to "Ye have made your way from worm to man, and much within you is still worm ..." 2/
Look at the little guy's face? Is he not - we? As Alexander Pope writes:

"So morning insects that in muck begun,
Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in the setting sun."

[I'll bet those lines crossed your mind, too.]

3/
But I worry I'm explaining, yet not OVER-explaining, not just the joke, but how how the joke is on Schopenhauer - hence it's reasonable to read not just "On Beyond Zarathustra" but also "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" as comedy. 4/
"Tink sat up in bed almost briskly to listen to her fate.
She fancied she heard answers in the affirmative, and then again she wasn’t sure. 'What do you think?' she asked Peter. 'If you believe,' he shouted to them, 'clap your hands; don’t let Tink die.'" What goes for Tinks 5/
goes for Thinks! If you want to believe in the joke, so you need me to over-explain the joke, clap! Don't let the reason for the joke die up here! 6/

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with John Holbo

John Holbo Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @jholbo1

20 Apr
Maybe I'll pile on this thread later, with the rest. For starters, I think we can agree Biden don't jive. The word is 'jibe'. But it's one of those words people get wrong. 1/
So I got curious. Whence 'jibe'? The odd thing is that this usage is opposite to other senses, seemingly. 'To jibe' is to sneer; or steer a boat in a way I wouldn't describe as 'harmonizing' with the wind. 2/ google.com/search?client=…
The OED says it's a mystery but the first instance, from 1813 - "it curricle-izes or gibes in but too well with the passing anecdotes of the day" - seems to suggest a clear solution and it isn't the phonetic connection to 'chime'. 3/
Read 13 tweets
19 Apr
If this doesn't get 'likes' I'm complaining to the manager.
Incredible. Still only a few likes for a meme that has something for everyone: Neoliberals with a sense of detachment; anti-neoliberals; people who aren’t sure what ‘neoliberalism’ means.
Read 4 tweets
19 Apr
Kerr BOTH thinks we should be talking about it as a thing that could be good AND that we are only permitted to use a word for it that implies it couldn't be good, 'court-packing'? C'mon, pick a lane. 1/
The D's need a philosophy of the judicial branch to counter 'originalist' argle-bargle from the right. 'Originalism' is a rhetoric not a philosophy (well, it's a bad philosophy, but so are most rhetorics.) But it's been hugely successful. 2/
D's need to counter that, undesirable as this is, the SC is now thoroughly politicized. Maybe it's all the fault of that darned Earl Warren, but, whatever, in recent decades the right has seen to it that its 6 R-appointed Justices are expected to be reliable partisans. 3/
Read 7 tweets
18 Apr
Anti-court-packing rhetoric ratchets up a notch NR. Some of this is guilty projection. NR has to get behind R's; R's are increasingly behind the Jan 6 insurrection, so, in all decency, you gotta try to peel some 'thuggish treason' off your team, stick it to the other team. 1/ ImageImage
Even so this is a bit much. I think D's need to push back. R's have, for decades, evolved this extreme rhetoric in which whatever D judges do is 'activism', whatever R judges do is not. (At NR, Whelan has a column that makes liberal = activism an alleged analytic legal truth.) 2/ Image
R's are always saying that D's are undermining the courts. But the opposite is true. R's have adopted a steady rhetoric that D judges, since they disagree with R's, who are doing the just plain right 'orginalist' thing, are illegitimate. 3/
Read 5 tweets
18 Apr
Hoo boy, kicker here is he doesn't say he checks resumes for evidence the student is a legacy admit at whatever top school, and downgrades accordingly. Even though he complains about legacy admissions as hypocrisy in the letter. 1/
The takeaway is: look, legacies are a thing. It's hypocrisy to get all worked up about race and NOT about legacy admits. (True!) Therefore, the status quo must be ... preserved? That's crazy. It isn't even two wrongs make a right. It's one wrong makes a right. 2/
The larger takeaway is that the enthusiastically favorable response to this letter, by Weiss and co., is proof Weiss and co. are empirically and morally delusional on the subject, like the letter writer himself. Severely so. 3/
Read 8 tweets
3 Mar
I read the news today o boy. Six Dr. Seuss books cancelled. 1/ washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
The books do contain negative stereotypes. It qualifies as a genuine minor dilemma. It is a fascinating, ethically fiddly topic to argue! At the same time, one of the two major parties in the US has, as its sole policy goal at present, vote suppression. 2/ apnews.com/article/dr-seu…
This generates a minor meta-dilemma. I don't want to forbid people debating the minor dilemma (just how harmful is it to small children that Seuss contains negative ethnic stereotypes?) just because voter suppression is more clear and consequential. Which it for sure is. 3/
Read 19 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!