Re: M&D: Learnédness (vs. Bornness//as reason for hope?)

[Mark Kohut]

"I am a British dog, I belong to no one, if not to you two. The next time
you are together, so shall I be, with you.
They wake early,---the Dog has gone."

On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 4:58 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Smoke!
>
> Great observation.  "Ownership" might be further explored in relation to
> some of its opposites.  GR goes to great lengths with the S&M of the daisy
> chain.  Nietzche's concepts of civilization might be a thread: Is all
> civility born of coercion?
>
> Is the LED owned?  Does his learnedness free him from being owned?
>
> David Morris
>
> On Sun, Dec 31, 2017 at 11:26 AM Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Third time through this book, and I am struck (again) by just how early
>> in the text the LED comes--as if there should be no question about how many
>> questions there will be about the world of the book.
>>
>> But the learnedness is interesting to me. The LED is the most civilized
>> member of most every group of talking mammals he encounters. The LED's
>> learnedness is the most foregrounded part of his identity. His civility is
>> acquired.
>>
>> And this, some time later, p. 92, amid the rainstorms, the young and
>> learning Seductrices Vroom, pursuing their "malicious fun," trying to
>> trigger what we might assume are at least somewhat born-in sexual responses
>> from our Astronomers (mostly M, though even he may be a more acceptable
>> substitute for the African boys ("Babies, rather," as Austra reminds and
>> admonishes the V sisters) they might otherwise be exploiting) as they await
>> the Transit ...
>>
>> "[Austra's] blond Procuresses all begin to expostulate at once, and Mason
>> understands that the vocal assaults of the Vrom Poultry are not inborn, but
>> rather learn'd in this World from their Owners."
>>
>> Does ugliness, just like civility or refinement, descend through great
>> hierarchical chains of ownership?
>>
>> I think some version of this question underlays the book just like so
>> much of the political philosophy that background the novel, the Hobbeses
>> and Lockes and Hamiltons of what is, we are told, the Age of Reason. Isn't
>> it?
>>
>
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