people take shit too seriously

don't blame the man with questionable ideas... blame the people who take his ideas too seriously! if people are so quick to jump to a new school of thought and say, "OMIGOD! THIS IS IT!" without a healthy level of skepticism, then aren't *those* people the ones to skewer, not the man who put his ideas out there? if the man just happened to be deft with shuffling words around, and a bunch of people who thought they were smart were duped into thinking that he was some sort of philosophical wonderchild, i think it's hysterically funny. i mean, these aren't average bears who were obsessing and poring over his works; these were the best and brightest in the most presigious universities! if those people ended up being tricked into believing empty philosophy, then the man must be brilliant after all! ha ha, joke's on you!

okay, moving along...

coming from someone who has never studied philosophy, humans are always looking for better systems, one of those systems being world views. we got to this point by people having good ideas, and along the way, people had some bad ideas that were eventually scrapped. but we never would have created nation-states, legal systems... or even social networking sites like friendster... if people didn't put their ideas out there. conservatives are afraid to stick their toe into a new swimming pool, and progressives are all too eager to jump to the first shiny thing that appears to be the answer to life's problems ("hey, dumbass! you just jumped into a pool of tupentine! HA HA!") without conservatives, the world would be lost and confused. without progressives, the world would be perpetually stuck in the stone age. and, of course, then there is everyone in between, who need to be convinced of one way or the other. (YAY! SWING VOTERS!)

this guy who wrote the article seems to be closer to a "conservative." the academics who were all to ready to accept derrida's world view seem to be "progressives." it stinks that people have to choose to be polarized like this (then again, with both sides working against each other, perhaps we end up with something closer to the truth...). i think in time, perhaps a bit of this dude derrida's views might just blend into old world views, i.e. maybe something he said would turn out to be of value. or maybe it *is* all bullshit, and then people will know it's bullshit, and they won't go there again. but we will at least have a definition of what is bullshit, so we won't waste time with it again. and so, no matter what, the existence of his ideas will be a good thing, i.e. "hey, been there done that. no need to try it. let's think of something else." it's all trial and error. part of the process. now move along... nothing to see here.

people take shit too seriously...