ICONOCLAST, n. A breaker of idols, the worshipers whereof are imperfectly gratified by the performance, and most strenuously protest that he unbuildeth but doth not reedify, that he pulleth down but pileth not up. For the poor things would have other idols in place of those he thwacketh upon the mazzard and dispelleth. But the iconoclast saith: "Ye shall have none at all, for ye need them not; and if the rebuilder fooleth round hereabout, behold I will depress the head of him and sit thereon till he squawk it."
-- Ambrose Bierce

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Bucket-Mouth: The epistemology of Generals & Saints

1

Not always necessary, playful (and occasionally, painful) improvisation is the mother of invention, perhaps thereafter, mothering necessity in a viscous cycle. Mimicry is the mother of diffusion and error of modification. The boot (or boat or butter or bucket) is the mother of distributivity (slickum, suave, salve & save), hence the common senses implied by "bucket-mouth", "shit-talk" and "slippery tongue".

2

Generalities cannot be defined (hence the logic of unquestionable chains of command), lest they become specified and generally cease to exist. We would then have to say "There are no generalities", a proper generalisation and a bit of arrogance, so proving ourselves liars or numbskulls, yet another box of abstractions. Safer to suggest "There are no specifics" than generalise from species to genera. Dissection is of course, the reverse of this process, a return trip to the same sticky bog we affectionately call "home on the range" (while incessantly trying to escape). I have heard a mule recently came into the family way. That we've long observed a coyote breed succesfully with Saint Bernard upsets the calm of specification like a wind-storm at sea when rowing a wobbly bucket. Intransigence at this point produces racism. For the greater good of the species, Benard must defeat the Trickster to save the lost mountaineer with a flask of brandy just as George, patron of Bohemians, did it to the dragon after gimpy Patrick had chased all the snakes from Ireland with his cane and women were no longer charming.

3

From an infant's view, the paleolithic diet eliminates the necessity of bottles and buckets without insult to invention and distribution, but only as long as post-weaners are still encouraged to play and mimicry is recognised as a round of mutual entertainment (or intertwinement). The big break at puberty is no negation of childhood but the extension of adventure into more foreign fortune. Prodigality is only applicable when news is returned from strange lands with such interest that all else is forgotten, when tears of loss magically turn to joy. Such was the superstition of the dark ages and grounds for yokes, stocks and flammable annihilation while at their posts, and spectators and torchbearers shouted the war cry: "Jesus saves from all infantile disorder!" and sin took on an entirely new meaning, for which Louis Pasteur invented the cure and today, micro-waves kill enzymes for improved distribution at the expense of metabolism. After all, the rapid delivery of news is money in the bank, while digestion is just the destruction of commodities and injurious to the general economy.

4

If superstition is the pessimistic belief that humans require alien or supernatural intervention (higher power in both senses) for any judgment of accomplishment (or value), how is political economy any progressive superssession of the old by the new? Let me then suggest that prior to state and theocratic intervention, society was without superstition, except in its etymological sense of climbing a hill to get a bigger picture or merely to see what's on the other side.

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