TODAY'S VOCABULARY WORDS

Retrosexual.  noun.  50s sitcom style heterosexual.

Repronormative.  adj.  enforcing breeder lifestyles.
 

12:04:28 AM    

PHILOSOPHICAL WONDER

A recent conversation:

"What one quality, above others, do you look for in a potential boyfriend?"

"Intelligence."

"What does that mean?"

"A genuine sense of wonder."

"What does THAT mean?"

Allow me to explain... I hate intellectual snobs and ivory tower elitism.  Well, I have been known to say "I am okay with elitism as long as I am not excluded."  When I say that I mainly refer to gay oriented elitism which has its purpose.  However, I can't stand snobs who claim to have more knowledge than others.  Every claim to knowledge is really an opinion.  This does not mean that we should not furvently argue for what we believe .  Only by arguing and testing others can we test ourselves.  However, those who are least intelligent have not adopted the Socratic stance of "The only thing I know is that I know nothing."  The "knowledge" that Socrates refers to is of the dogmatic variety.  The Socratic dialogues show that many of his interlocutors made their opinions a reality.  When Socrates pointed out that their reality was an illusion it was painful.

One thing I've learned associating with academics is that there are a whole lot of stupid people with degrees.  I also happen to live with one of the smartest people I have ever met and she doesn't have a high school diploma.  So, what does a "genuine sense of wonder" mean?  It means being comfortable with the painful process of questioning one's assumed reality. In the words of Hannah Arendt:

"It is from the actual experience of not-knowing, in which one of the basic aspects of the human condition on earth reveals itself, that the ultimate questions arise -- not from the rationalized, demonstrable fact that there are things man does not know, which belivers in progresss hope to see fully amended one day, or which positivists may discard as irrelevant.  In asking the ultimate, unanswerable questions, man establishes himself as a question-asking being...Were man ever to lose the faculty of asking ultimate queestions, he would by the same token lose his faculty of asking answerable questions."

I want to meet people that wonder, not people that "know." 

12:02:47 AM