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

[Monte Davis]

"For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the
midst of them." (Matthew 18:20)

On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 5:14 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> "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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