No Regrets: the Birth of
Kamikaze Rhetoric.
My debate professor,
though he initially inspired me and motivated me to improve and to excel, made
a number of disturbing arguments over the course of the three semesters that I
took classes with him. Foremost in my mind, however, is this: that in the past, “we had time” to engage in
philosophy, but that that is not the case in the present day.
That time is speeding
up, accelerating towards a breaking point, is not farfetched, though I owe it
to Hindu philosophy that I can conceive the concept. Yet, realistically, life
expectancy has only gone up in civilized* countries in the last two hundred years.
If men had time to think back then, then certainly they have it now. Why, even
WOMEN have started to think, and with the exception of feminists a great many
of them.
There is absolutely no
“application of one’s time” in the present day that can simply be PRESUMED to
be important, so thought is a prerequisite to action. Doctor Whearty cannot
INDUCE action in his students without warrant and reflection, unless he resorts
to methods such as force or coercion. There is simply no inherent imperative
for us to join a side. THAT must be supplied, and philosophy alone can supply
it. If anything has changed in the last two hundred years, then it is the
nature of authority and the death of romantic nationalism. And both of THOSE
changes have been for the better, whereas if Whearty and Hawking were right to
condemn philosophy to the grave, even if only for the sake of argument and
personal aggrandizement, then the Hindus may be corroborated in their vision of
the End Times.
Frankly, both sides are
true. Things have gotten better, but only for the wise. Ignorance has grown in
direct proportion. One has simply to choose a side now. And I have no regrets
about the side I’ve chosen.
Whearty made another
chilling suggestion, one dark night at (I think) Mt. San Antonio College: that
hate speech ought to be banned.
Thankfully, it’s not, so
I did not hesitate to cuss out all the debaters, calling them faggots and
niggers.
Why?
Why NOT, of course!!
After all, I’m simply ARBITRATING a way of communicating, doing so to arouse sentiment
in support of my cause, apathetic to the occasional dissenter. Oh, don’t get me
wrong; I certainly have VOLUMES of text to corroborate my position, to degrees
of philosophical subtlety and sophistication that many of my peers can only
begin to imagine, as I can only begin to imagine how they interpret it. I am
CERTAINLY not a bigot; you simply have to read a lot of Deleuze, Heidegger, and
Nietzsche to understand that as clearly as I do. And before you laugh at my
seeming arrogance, know that your laughter is at your own expense. I have lost
nothing but corrupting social influences. You have lost Enlightenment Itself.
(as though you ever cared for it.) It’s not that I don’t HAVE a philosophy. I
simply feel no need to weigh it against YOUR philosophy, preferring to power my
way through its actualization BECAUSE I CAN.
And obviously I am
satirizing you by doing so.
*yes, CIVILIZED!!
[({Dm.A.A.)}]
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