As you might have guessed, it is the time of year that many of us are bogged down by schoolwork, so while the old SF.c is not exactly dead, it is quieter than we would like to see it. If you cast your mind back, even just a little, you’ll also find this means it’s time for strange fluff.
As happens sometimes your genial host Pontifus and I were chatting just a while ago. Here’s what happened.
OGT: Thought: Western intellectual tradition: “Humanity is imperfect and must strive towards perfection.”
OGT: Thought 2: Eastern intellectual tradition: “Humanity is imperfect, and must strive towards acceptance of that imperfection.”
lelangir: wow I like eastern tradition moar.
ghostlightning: A syncretic view: Everything is perfect the way things are. Imperfection is a human construct too.
lelangir: political view: syncretism is a cop-out, we need to stick constructively towards a defined goal.
ghostlightning: If imperfection is “something’s wrong,” it gets in the way of dialog as it tends to affix blame rther than inspire responsibility.
OGT: Thought 4: I think too much. Back to Victory Gundam.
THIS
or
nihilism is knowledge/power; in most cases, it can only be realized/actualized within capitalist institutions, thus materialism is the means towards idealism, towards the construction of contingent truths, towards a philosophical happiness that grants material happiness.
As the twenty-second episode of ~After Story~ puttered to a halt, I hung my head in shame — shame for my falling for it at least partially and being sort of happy in the end, but mostly shame for KyoAni for doing exactly what I thought they’d do.
THE PINNACLE OF RELEVANCE!
In part of a post, omo brings up a very interesting thing that really tickles my balls.
We’re nearing the last leg of Northrop Frye’s first essay in Anatomy of Criticism; this time we’re tackling the section called “Thematic Modes.”
Responding to my last post, IKnight pointed me in the direction of an interesting little theory, and, since I haven’t been able to muster the concentration required to watch Ouran High School Host Club for long periods of time like I’d planned, I figured I may as well see what I could make of mouvance. Come to find out, I can at least ramble on the topic for a little while; this began as a pontif.us post, but quickly outgrew those humble origins.
You knew she'd show up eventually.
After over two months away — two months of thesis writing and so on — my Adventures in Criticism return. If you recall from last time, we tackled Frye’s first essay, the “Theory of Modes.” Or rather, one third of it. I’m going through the second third now.
Sorry, I had to use that line — we of course don’t know if anyone (other than Sei) is gay or bi.
My sci-fi professor talks about epistemology every so often; given the nature of science fiction and its tendency to examine how we know what we know, this makes sense. It also means the topic is on my mind, and I owe you folks a Marimite post. So we’ll get a six-pack of theory and see where the night takes us.
Remember me? It’s Pontifus, that guy who has successfully ignored the blog he created for about a month! Why, you may or may not ask? Because I’m embroiled in another of my regularly scheduled methodological crises, and those are well and truly crippling. But that’s boring, so let’s move on.
I realized recently that Baka-Tsuki and its cadre of rogue translators are working their way through the Toradora light novels, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to indulge. Normally I would resist; I don’t like to be in the middle of more than one adaptation at a time. But I’m willing to make exceptions when I’m far enough in one that I’m well past the beginning of the other, and when I really like the franchise in question.
In retrospect, I almost wish I’d exercised some restraint.