h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oh and you're talking to a Goldsmith's Fine Arts grad. It goes to the heart of the course there.

Not heard the term pomo before? You should get out more! It's not an exclusively hootoo term at all at all.

And, sorry, but language is NOT always about the phallus. I am calling BS on that one.

And Freud's thoughts on penis envy? Meh. Men have womb envy, and that is what all male sexism is ultimately about. It is very explicit in honour killings, bit it comes down to this: The thing that women do that men cannot is have children. Men want to *control that right*. Not just men, male lions kill other males' lion cubs. It's a Darwinian imperative. And why would anyone with a G-spot want a penis anyway? Other than to pee standing up.

I know your degree was important to you, but arguments fom authority (this is right because I say so) really annoy people. Mind you, I do do that myself at times....

Well Dogster, a Cambridge man, knows all about Lacan's thinking...and I've read nearly all of Freud.

Lacan writes in a nearly incomprehensible style...and the phallus idea gets a lot of getting into. A lot of feminists agree with Lacan as a way of explaining patriarchy..but there are also feminists who try to talk about something connected with the 'matrix' which is outside that system.

And yes men envy women in every way imaginable

I'm not arguing from authority..just explaining the Goldsmith's context.

I'll take your word for pomo..but really here is the first time I came across it...and yes I do need to get out more.

I think my problem with post-modernism is that there is some truth to it. I was talking about this with a colleague yesterday and said

"Look at this cup - the shape of it's a social construct, the design, the fact I've got tea in it, all those things are social constructs, but the way that clay goes from soft to hard when it's fired and the way the glaze works is not a social construct, that's physics and chemistry - a universal and testable truth. So it's horses for courses, and I get very annoyed with scientists who pretend that some things aren't relative, and I get very annoyed with post-modernists who pretend it all is."

The worrying thing is he didn't smile nervously and back away! In fact he did philosophy at uni, and was entirely up for a discussion about post-modernism.

B

I'm glad you stopped saying pomo.

Did you hear the Jean Baudrillard idea that the first gulf war didn't really happen. We watched it intensively on tv. If you remember the yanks did 'shock and awe' and it was all on CNN.

Of course not to be taken seriously..and it was a big joke when I was at college.

That's the sort of thing I find so offensive about post-modernists. They make an entirely valid point about how we relate to the world (filtered through news media) and in the process suggest that 20,000 to 35,000 people weren't killed. And it's a great joke. (Or do you mean the current one, in which case we are talking nearer hundreds of thousands of people killed, which makes my point even more strongly, really).

The 1991 Gulf War Was interesting becuase it was so highly televised. U2's song "Even Better than the Real Thing" was based on an interview with one of the pilots who, of course, had trained for years in simulators. When a journalist asked how his mission had been his response was "very realistic". So, yes, there are interesting questions to ask about what is real - if we cannot trust our senses (and we can't, remember our converstation about starlings?) then why should we think they are more trustworthy than simulators or news media? What bugs me is that these really interesting and challenging questions are wrapped up in self-congratulatory smugness in remarks that are "not to be taken seriously" and "a big joke". The "Turkey Shoot" on the Road to Basra still makes me sick to my stomach.

Sorry to be so sanctimonious. With post-modernism the message is really interesting, but the medium makes my skin crawl.

I don't think its a great joke really like its funny..but that it's philosophical.

And you really should know that its something that's caused a great wave of women artists to crash through the Modernist monolith of the heroic male artist...

Because its all about fragmentation.

Ah,yes, Post-Modernism and the Patriarchy..... How long have you got?

Good that women are breaking through in fields that they were excluded from before. But what a betrayal of feminism to turn it into a sub-branch of post-modernism.

You don't need to be a post-modernist to succeed as a woman, In fact, it might be better not to be a post-modernist.

Z went to a neuro-sciences conference this week and said that most of the people there were women. Most doctors are women. Women are better educated and are achieving more in meritocratic professions. But how much better for the rest of us women if those successful, clever, intelligent women thought of themselves as feminists? But feminist is a dirty word because of the way that feminists hitched their waggon to post-modernism's intellecutal dishonesty.

Bizzare.

Can we talk about tea?

Indian or China?

And tell me more about fragmentation. What do you mean?

No you misunderstand a bit. I'm specifically talking about the Arts..I don't really know about other areas that post modernism affects.

Artists don't call themselves postmodernists. They call themselves artists. But when the narrative changes it affects the power issues.

In the Arts in modernism there was the myth of the great heroic male artist..eg picasso, Pollock. Woman was always seen as muse and object/model for the male to express his ideas about.

I was mentioning Lacan to you and his re-writing of Freud through fragmented language. Its to do with the Oedipus complex and that being the crucial moment for a person to become part of community and born into language.

The phallus is all about oneness and unity.

I'd prefer a

I was being ironic about the idea of measuring EQ on that other thread.

But what would have to do with a scientist using that to *feel* reality to help them come up with new ideas or an artist?

I prefer the term Emotional intelligence to EQ or EI.

But you said hugometer. I don't see what that has to do with it.

Well okay yes. If you mean touch reality..which can be very good in relationships. But it sounds a bit disparaging.

(BTW I'm not meaning to be unduly brusque with you in style. Just straight talking.)

I didn't really mean anything. Quite often I don't, you know.

You asked how they measured it. I said I thought they probably didn't. I then used a smiley to indicate something more touchy-feely than scientific/positivist.

That was it. I do often post quickly and flippantly, you know. Same as we all do.

Ben

It's an extremely important concept to me. And I assumed everyone knew I was being ironical about such a thing.

Of course people think IQ can be measured. And it can. But what does it actually mean? It has nothing to do with the kind of intelligence I admire. Einstein didn't have a particularly high one from what I've read.

But I understand what you say about flippancy. Yes we all can.

>more touchy-feely than scientific/positivist.<

Actually I'll leave this thread again for a while. I can't believe you would use a term like touchy-feely.

You're welcome to your scientific/positivist stuff.

For me its all about creativity of thought..whether that's in science art or relationships...

All the people in my life that I've had huge respect for their intelligence whether they were artists scientists or something else were exteremly able in emotional intelligence. And its something you get to know by talking and communicating with people..and their ideas..and the way they will challenge themselves all the time to think differently.

I'll probably be back at some point because I do like you..but this communication is going nowhere.

Yes, but I meant more touchy-feely. I didn't mean artistic or creative, or indeed relativist or interpretivist.

Do please take care of yourself. Looking on from the outside, you seem very brittle right now, and I know people worry about you.

B

I don't feel in the least brittle. Quite the opposite...quite playful a lot of the time here in fact..but yes upfront as well. Maybe its a cultural difference between us.

But yes I have big problems at present and as I keep saying there's no more tablets to try...

Still don't know what touchy feely is.

Someone has started yikesing the journal that I use to let of steam in which is now really doing my head in. The one where I basically talk to myself so I don't cause problems in general threads. People should start to feel worried about me.

You can imagine the paranoia.

That is horrible.

Ben