cosina
"I think being a woman is like being Irish." — Iris Murdoch
Ideals of Masculine Whatnot
written under the influence If you're a philosopher, the word "ideals" has a strange ring for you. Most of us just think about stuff, but philosophers -- whew! they can't be sure whether they're thinking, or you're thinking, or if it's possible for two people to think the same thing... whew! What philosophy is all about is finding the one problem that screws everything else up.
Like David Hume: he cracked apart cause and effect. He figured that if you set fire to his book, and the book burnt to ashes, there was no way you could prove that the two events were related. Clever, eh? (Get a job, David!)
Now I forgot why I started out with this. Oh, now I remember! Socrates wanted to be a philosopher, but he didn't really have the RIGHT STUFF for it. But that didn't stop him from making trouble for everybody else who was philosophizing at that time. One of Socrates' hobbyhorses was IDEALS. The concept is that, for example, there's one ideal man, and every particular man, every man that you could meet, is somehow a derivative or reflection or emanation or expression of this Ideal Man. And you can't ever meet this ideal man (although he has the ideal phone number, no doubt), and you don't know how long his thing is, or how tall he is, or what he smells like or anything, but he is just the manniest man ever! He's the guy that all men get their manliness from, and when they're done being manly, their manliness goes back to him.
Obviously this is one of the most asinine ideas that ever paraded under the banner of philosophy, but let that go for now.
The point is, that I went to a bar tonight to have dinner. I was SO hungry that I didn't want to wait until I got home, and I figured that this week (I mean, after tonight) I will be good and eat healthy in the last few days before Nelson and Emma come home...
ANYWAY: the bartender was, um, okay... let me back up a bit.
Nelson sometimes talks about "ideals of feminine beauty." He says there are several Ideals of Feminine Beauty. I'm going to leave out the names he gives to them because I don't want to argue. But these are the ones I can remember:
So I was at this bar, and the bartender was a short, wiry, blond guy. There was not a scrap of fat on him, but he wasn't muscular or broad-shouldered. He kept calling me "Hon" and "Honey" (and I thought I heard him say "darling" one time). I knew it was all about the tip, but I have to say, it worked. When he said, "Do you want coffee?" I said, "Oh, yes!" And when he said, "How about the dessert menu?" I said, "Oh, I would like that!"
As you can imagine, by the time I left, he was giving me some strange, uncertain looks.
But I had a good time, and I left a good tip, and I guess that what's it's all about, but then again, I'm no philosopher.
(Thank god Nelson's coming home next week!)
Like David Hume: he cracked apart cause and effect. He figured that if you set fire to his book, and the book burnt to ashes, there was no way you could prove that the two events were related. Clever, eh? (Get a job, David!)
Now I forgot why I started out with this. Oh, now I remember! Socrates wanted to be a philosopher, but he didn't really have the RIGHT STUFF for it. But that didn't stop him from making trouble for everybody else who was philosophizing at that time. One of Socrates' hobbyhorses was IDEALS. The concept is that, for example, there's one ideal man, and every particular man, every man that you could meet, is somehow a derivative or reflection or emanation or expression of this Ideal Man. And you can't ever meet this ideal man (although he has the ideal phone number, no doubt), and you don't know how long his thing is, or how tall he is, or what he smells like or anything, but he is just the manniest man ever! He's the guy that all men get their manliness from, and when they're done being manly, their manliness goes back to him.
Obviously this is one of the most asinine ideas that ever paraded under the banner of philosophy, but let that go for now.
The point is, that I went to a bar tonight to have dinner. I was SO hungry that I didn't want to wait until I got home, and I figured that this week (I mean, after tonight) I will be good and eat healthy in the last few days before Nelson and Emma come home...
ANYWAY: the bartender was, um, okay... let me back up a bit.
Nelson sometimes talks about "ideals of feminine beauty." He says there are several Ideals of Feminine Beauty. I'm going to leave out the names he gives to them because I don't want to argue. But these are the ones I can remember:
- voluptuous, dark haired, with generous curves... is warm and tends to smile
- slim, blonde or red haired
- small, delicate features, curly hair
So I was at this bar, and the bartender was a short, wiry, blond guy. There was not a scrap of fat on him, but he wasn't muscular or broad-shouldered. He kept calling me "Hon" and "Honey" (and I thought I heard him say "darling" one time). I knew it was all about the tip, but I have to say, it worked. When he said, "Do you want coffee?" I said, "Oh, yes!" And when he said, "How about the dessert menu?" I said, "Oh, I would like that!"
As you can imagine, by the time I left, he was giving me some strange, uncertain looks.
But I had a good time, and I left a good tip, and I guess that what's it's all about, but then again, I'm no philosopher.
(Thank god Nelson's coming home next week!)
