Sour Grapes
January 8th 2010 15:05
The saying "sour grapes" started with an Aesop's Fable. We all know what it means - but, how wide are its implications? Is there a connection between sour grapes and Nietzsche's ressentiment?
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Banana Mango
Sydney, New South Wales, AUSTRALIA
Joined September 14th 2006
Number of Posts:
24
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Recent Posts If you have to ask, you'll never knowNovember 11th 2009 06:33
I have to write a blog today or my account will apparently become inactive, so, I'll just write a short one on a favourite quote of mine that I'll continue in a later blog.
"If you have to ask, you'll never know". I love this because it is in favour of intuition. Particularly in my field of study, philosophy, people are asked to explain why they believe what they do. The problem is, though, that the reasons given are always only an approximation if what they already believe through their intuitive, or pre-rational, thought. It also applies to aesthetics and more subjective fields. In the field of wine tasting, for example, if you are given a glass of Penfolds Grange, only to ask what is so good about it, it indicates a non-discerning sense of smell and taste, which no amount of explaining can account for. It also applies to my blogs: if you have to ask what the he'll I'm on about, no amount of explaining on my part will fully enable you to grasp my point of view.
By their fruits you shall know themSeptember 12th 2009 07:30
In the bible, Matthew 7:16 to be precise, it states that "by their fruits you shall know them". What this means, by analogy of how well a fruit can bear fruit, is that you can know somebody by their outward manifestations. I will analyse and expand upon the implications of this in more detail:
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, in Beyond Good and Evil: "Gradually it has become clear to me what every great philosophy so far has been: namely, the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir" In other words, he is professing the very same idea that Jesus proposed in the Bible, that is, you can know someone by their outward manifestations. This is almost an anti-philosophical idea, for the purpose of philosophy is to find that which is objective through the use of reason. According to Nietzsche, though, all someone's philosophy tells us is not that which is true, but that which they believe; in other words, their subjective outlook upon life. Let's look at another example: my own blogs. What is interesting is that as I was writing them, I was trying to be as objective as possible. And really, I thought I was being objective, I mean, I was using reason after all, wasn't I? But let's look at some of the blog titles: If you're bored then you're boring Judge not, lest ye be judged Familiarity breeds contempt (about how one gets tired of another after too much time with them) You can never step in the same river twice (regarding identity issues) Can you see a common thread here?? It is quite clear that in analysing these issues, I was also revealing the essence of my personality. Someone who is concerned with being bored, someone who is concerned about judgement from others, someone who gets tired from too much company with others... this person (me) is an introvert, with possible social anxiety and perhaps even schizoid tendencies. Their highly analytical nature suggests a strong logical thinking capacity, and the fact that it is applied to the subject rather than the object (the self rather than the world) means that this thinking is of an introverted nature. And here I was thinking that I was discussing pertinent issues! All I was doing was revealing my subjective experience of things, bearing my fruits if you will (perhaps on an intuitive level I knew this was true, and hence why I was a bit embarrassed about showing my blog to people I know). Now a sceptic might say, "oh, but this is a personal blog, proper academic philosophy or something such as science is free from such subjectivity". Science is a hard one to answer, but philosophy is certainly not free from the subjective. Whatever your beliefs are, they will reveal as much about yourself as they do the world. The reason foe this is that through engaging in an activity, whether it's science, philosophy, sex or whatever else, we automatically reveal our preference for that activity. We obviously value it over other activities at that point in time, otherwise we would do something else (unless we're forced to do that thing, which would still reveal something about our subjective experience). So where to now for me? For someone who desperately wanted to use the objective in order to escape from the suffering of the subjective? I'm not sure. My subject (self) has a unique relationship with the object (world) and the wrestling between the two is something that will occur as long as I'm alive.
It Takes One to Know One, Part IAugust 29th 2009 07:01
I have been doing a lot of thinking recently, and a lot of observing (yeah I know, what's new). Something that has become clear to me is the truth of the saying, "it takes one to know one". Yes I know this comment is often used in jest, for example:
Kid 1: You're an idiot
Why I like the little guyMarch 3rd 2009 14:58
I have never been one for titles. I have little to no ambition for achieving a high position in anything, in getting letters next to my name, or in receiving any awards. I think that they are a very poor gauge of the quality of a person. The quality of a person should instead be measured by the person. And by "person" I don't mean the sum someone's abstract qualities, I mean what they put into life every day. For example, Jack Kerouac should be judged on his works, not by how many awards he has won. Pearl Jam should be judged by their music, not by how many records they've sold. The big difference in doing this, though, is that it's not really a "judgement" at all. If I listen to Pearl Jam and am moved, that has nothing to do with judging. If I am caught up in the words of Kerouac, that has nothing to do with judging. All that is is an affectation. Titles, though, are always about judging, about awarding someone according to their honour or achievements or some other abstract invention. All they do is reward the ambitious, and I dislike ambition. It is not honest. I read an article that ambitious students are much more likely to cheat on their exams. You see, ambition is all about getting titles or marks or sales targets or whatever. It is never about service or contribution, otherwise it would not be called ambition.
Back to my main topic, then: the little guy. I like the little guy because he is without titles or status. Diablo Cody two years ago was just a regular internet blogger, a "little guy", and now she is an Academy Award winner. What has changed in that time? One screenplay. But was she any different before that screenplay? If someone had a good eye, they would have spotted her quality regardless of her "little guy" status (and they eventually did). No doubt people will judge her more highly now that she has "achieved" something worthy. People will want to know her for her status. These are the ambitious people, the people who see only titles. I prefer people who see only quality, and do not concern themselves with frivolous titles and positions.
My Top 15 albumsMarch 1st 2009 12:05
1. Jeff Buckley, “Grace”. Sheer aural bliss. There is nothing more beautiful and graceful in music than Jeff Buckley at his best, there really isn’t. I’d recorded Eternal Life on tape off the radio before I bought the album, and that song was just intense. Jeff Buckley’s music just has something that no other music does, and I can’t pinpoint what it is. Some sort of mix between sadness, passion, anger, vulnerability, soulfulness, beauty… maybe it’s just Jeff-ness. Anyway I heard that in Eternal Life, especially part where it quietens down and builds back up to where he screams “when will I find the strength to bring me release?”. I think one of the main things that is so amazing about Jeff Buckley is that every little part of the song is infused with this Jeff-ness beauty: the guitar intro blew me away, the chords of the verse; just every little part is a microcosm of wonder. And I could say the same about every single song on Grace. I like to say that if music just sounds like a bunch of notes or chords, that’s a sign of bad music. With Jeff Buckley, a C chord never sounded like a C chord, and a guitar never sounded like a guitar, it all just completely transcended that. It really is beyond music.
2. Pearl Jam, “Ten”. No other band changed my life the way Pearl Jam did. Before I got into Pearl Jam, I was listening to whatever was playing on Ugly Phil’s Hot 30, including non other than the Spice Girls, whose album I even bought. But I changed over to Triple M for some random reason, and it wasn’t long before I came across Pearl Jam, whose songs they used to play on fairly heavy rotation. Songs like Alive, Daughter and especially Even Flow just blew me away. I already had Vitalogy sitting at home which my dad had bought years before, but never bothered to listen to it, so I got it out and gave it a few listens. It wasn’t until I bought Ten, though, that I was completely won over. There used to be a sort of magic about buying CD’s for me that unfortunately kids of the new generation will not be able to experience. I saved up the $30 required and headed over to Sanity Eastgardens with the sole purpose of buying Ten. Unfortunately I have to resort to a cliché here: words simply can’t describe how much magic that CD contained for me (after all, where words fail, music speaks). I was completely riveted, moved and inspired, and begun playing guitar in order to learn all the songs, in particular the main riff and solo to Alive. I listen to Ten today and it doesn’t have quite the same effect on me – I have listened to it far too much over the years and the shiny gloss has kind of worn off, but I still remember the feelings when I first used to listen to songs like Black, Release, Alive, Once
You can never step in the same river twiceFebruary 26th 2009 13:44
"You can never step in the same river twice"
I've been thinking a lot recently about careers - what path to follow, what job to go after etc. This got me thinking about identity - if I am to know what job or career is best suited to me, then I first have to know who I am. Of course, this is a massively problematic question. Who indeed am I?? It's a question at the centre of a lot of philosophical and spiritual inquiry
Why I write this blogFebruary 19th 2009 12:16
I was thinking about this blog, and it occurred to me that it's a bit purposeless. I initially started it because I found quotes to be interesting, and contain a lot of truth (or at least the potential for truth). Reading back over my blogs though, the various quotes used have just been excuses for me to splurge my opinion on things, and while I enjoy having that outlet, it doesn't seem to be very purposeful. In addition, it is very unlikely that people who type "quotes" or "quips" into Google are looking for a hyper-analysis of what a quote means or its implications. As such, I'm going to change this blog at some point into a format where the readers that find the site will be people who are actually looking for strongly opinionated analysis on generally held wisdom.
My blog is NOT intended to be light reading and I don't want anymore to attract readers who are just looking for some smart quips or their origins.
My Top 10 ever songsFebruary 14th 2009 13:05
My top 10 songs ever (not necessarily my favourites now, but the ones that were the most significant etc):
1. Walk Away, Ben Harper. I have sung this by myself in my room with a guitar so many times I couldn't even count. And I feel more each time - such a simple song, but so much power between the notes
Rejecting Consumerism in Times of RecessionFebruary 11th 2009 05:35
I thought this article, written by John Huxley for the Sydney Morning Herald, was just smashingly good:
And now for the good news
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on By their fruits you shall know them
Quotable Quips
Banana and Mango
My heroes are people like Casanova and Neal Cassady: people who lived full, sensational lives. But I don't think I have it in me to be like them. And I have tried, believe me. I accept it as my fate to be a somewhat detached intellectual (or pseudo-intellectual, as one person called me - I'm not concerned with semantics). It's actually not all that bad - my imagination is vivid and my mind can provide me with no end of stimulation. I can be alone for hours and not get bored. I feel strongly about art, music and literature. I get great joy from sitting quietly in a library and reading Schopenhauer. I really feel that I am better off accepting my fate as a thinker rather than resisting it, as I did for so long in my attempt to be "happy".
I hope that you begin to do, instead of thinking of doing and analyzing the difference
As Simone de Beauvoir said, "man never contemplates: he does". Contemplating is my way of doing. And really, if everyone in history took your advice, there would never have been a Schopenhauer, or a Socrates, or probably not even a Buddha. And that would have been a shame.