...not to be confused with Abholeth
For a week now, I've had a word stuck in my head.
Here's how that works. Like a song except that it's just a word and I have no idea what it means.
The word: shiboleth.
Yeah. Just walking around with a shiboleth in my brain.
Turns out that if I ever use the word shiboleth, it will act as a shiboleth.
Previous words recently in my head have included: ersatz and palimpsest. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Back?
In any case, while looking up shiboleth so as to get it out of my brain and into my dissertation, I found out the difference between elicit and illicit. Interesting? No?
No.
Here's where it comes from. I'm reading crazy shit right now and a word will be on the page and I'll just plow through it and it will sit in my subconscious.
Here, I'll give you something so that maybe you can enjoy the experience as well. This one comes from Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation. A real page turner. I've been reading it for an hour and a half and I'm on page 17!
Here you go:
“manipulation is a wavering causality in which positivity and negativity are engendered and overlap, in which there is no longer either an active or a passive. It is through the arbitrary cessation of this spiraling causality that a principal of political reality can be saved. It is through the simulation of a narrow conventional field of perspective in which the premises and the consequences of an act or of an event can be calculated, that a political credibility can be maintained (and of course “objective” analysis, the struggle, etc.). If one envisions the entire cycle of any act or event in a system where linear continuity and dialectical polarity no longer exist, in a field unhinged by simulation, all determination evaporates, every act is terminated at the end of the cycle having benefited everyone and having been scattered in all directions” (16).
Yeah, I know...like, duh.
Here's how that works. Like a song except that it's just a word and I have no idea what it means.
The word: shiboleth.
Yeah. Just walking around with a shiboleth in my brain.
Turns out that if I ever use the word shiboleth, it will act as a shiboleth.
Previous words recently in my head have included: ersatz and palimpsest. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Back?
In any case, while looking up shiboleth so as to get it out of my brain and into my dissertation, I found out the difference between elicit and illicit. Interesting? No?
No.
Here's where it comes from. I'm reading crazy shit right now and a word will be on the page and I'll just plow through it and it will sit in my subconscious.
Here, I'll give you something so that maybe you can enjoy the experience as well. This one comes from Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation. A real page turner. I've been reading it for an hour and a half and I'm on page 17!
Here you go:
“manipulation is a wavering causality in which positivity and negativity are engendered and overlap, in which there is no longer either an active or a passive. It is through the arbitrary cessation of this spiraling causality that a principal of political reality can be saved. It is through the simulation of a narrow conventional field of perspective in which the premises and the consequences of an act or of an event can be calculated, that a political credibility can be maintained (and of course “objective” analysis, the struggle, etc.). If one envisions the entire cycle of any act or event in a system where linear continuity and dialectical polarity no longer exist, in a field unhinged by simulation, all determination evaporates, every act is terminated at the end of the cycle having benefited everyone and having been scattered in all directions” (16).
Yeah, I know...like, duh.
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
2:07 PM
3 Comments:
I'm guessing this guy was highly intelligent and well-read, and probably understood exactly what he was saying. I'm also guessing that he didn't realize that most people would not be able to comprehend what he was talking about. At least, not without sitting and thinking about each paragraph, and analyzing them structurally, for hours on end. Granted, this one piece is taken out of context, slowing comprehension significantly.
As for a word that got me today... how about tontine?
Last Known address of Luke Skywalker?
Haha! It's an annuity scheme wherein a bunch of people pitch in, then as they die off, the remaining people get paid more and more. Very Highlander-ish.
There can be only One!
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