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

[Mark Kohut]

Wow....more possible religious 'transcendence' [or simply religious belief]
savaged. Dog spelled backwards, of course, is.......
His layering is (often) like Shakespeare's, so subtly barely visible in M &
D esp and Against the Day, I suggest. (perhaps more overt
in GR, more easily googleable say. )

That line, with 'so shall I be"....sublime
Learnedness also savaged, of course.  Civilization--rising above our
'animal' natures--skewered and in the rest of all that Monte quoted.



On Wed, Jan 3, 2018 at 9:04 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> "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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