Nov 29, 2008 0
Two of the following three legal actions were actually taken in the recent past; the third occurs in William Gaddis’s masterful 1994 satire of the American legal system, A Frolic of His Own.
1. A Pennsylvanian filed a lawsuit against Satan.
2. A Californian filed an amicus brief on behalf of God.
3. A Nebraskan filed a lawsuit against God.
Which is the fiction?
Nov 21, 2008 0
Rallying supporters to a political cause, rallying supporters of a team, rallying the adherents of a faith, and rallying oneself to make a romantic commitment all take this form: pretending that we know something (usually about the future [i.e., "We will beat Cal"], but often about the past [i.e., "Christ died for our sins"] or the present [i.e., "The American people want change"]) that we do not and cannot empirically know. In the romantic sphere, as in political sphere, the distinction between lying and failing applies: a divorce due to marital issues does not mean that the parties lied when they said “Till death do us part”; it means that they decided, gradually or suddenly, that fidelity to the truth of their everlasting love has proved unfounded.
Nov 9, 2008 0
Marshall McLuhan, in his 1964 book Understanding Media, advances the notion that as the globe becomes increasingly interconnected by electronic technology it becomes “no more than a village. Electric speed in bringing all social and political functions together in a sudden implosion has heightened human awareness of responsibility to an intense degree.” The effect of this “implosive factor,” McLuhan maintains, is to alter the position of marginalized subjects, who “can no longer be contained, in the political sense of limited association. They are now involved in our lives, and we in theirs, thanks to the electric media.”
