Die Universal!
Matt Kozusko (mkozusko@parallel.park.uga.edu)
Wed, 15 Jul 1998 18:53:39 -0400
WILL HOCHMAN wrote:
> Matt, how about taking the question, where do the do ducks go in winter?
> It seems to me that can be a pretty human and universal concern...or
> howabout Holden saying "people are always ruining things"...isn't that
> pretty understandable throughout time and cultures? will
I agree that pretty much everybody brought up in a social capacity of
one sort or another would understand and perhaps empathize with the idea
that "people are always ruining things." I mentioned once before that
the fine distinction I'm insisting upon is, for the most part,
extraordinarily pedantic. I pursue it at this point only for the sake
of argument.
Someone else recently suggested mathematical concepts that are
functionally and usefully true (for such things as building bridges) but
that elude definitive proof of absolute trueness. To insist that such
concepts cannot be regarded as eternally and universally and objectively
true involves a sort of pedantry similar to the one I am dragging around
this discussion. It's not Pride so much as a soul-permanent
stubbornness calcified over eight years of erecting prose fortresses in
academic papers. Some bloody English teacher or other along the way
probably made some marginal comment on one of my essays beginning with
"what if" or "but" or "of course" and then stalked the length of my
argument to locate some minute but hideous and fatal deformity in my
logic, some blind, shorn Samson of an oversight that pulled the whole
damned fantastic prolusion down by its marble pillars and cost me three
points and B plus, transforming me into the world-weary, baggy-eyed,
stone-livered, ever-obstinate graduate student I am today.
I apologize to the list for being cranky lately. I got a new pair of
shoes a couple of weeks ago, and I think they're too tight.
--
Matt Kozusko Fie on't, ah, Fie!@parallel.park.uga.edu