Pissy Paws & A Telephone Call From God

Åsikter

“Jag mötte en akademiker, en brud, som höll med ungarna när de kallade mig för djävla jude. Hon sa ‘ja, men den menade ju att du är snål, som judarna är’ och hon var helt oförstående när jag med en tyst blick försökte få henne att brask-lappa åtminstone någonting! Nej hon tyckte minsann det var självklart att judarna var snåla och avskyvärda. Det tyckte jag var ganska spännande.” 

         -J.M.F.

49 How Can You Tell a Cultural Philistine?

“I received plenty of questions about the Bildungsphilister in my Black Swan Glossary. Trivial: someone commoditized in his knowledge and tastes, lacking idiosyncratic traits. Say someone who likes Matisse because it is the thing to do and, when he travels, makes sure to visit Impressionist galleries arts museums in order to be sophisticated (true someone may be genuine in his love of Matisse but it should come from personal trial and error, after disliking the sculptures of the third floor, not because the vagaries of the auctioneer’s hammer. The same Bildungsphilister would have scorned Matisse before it penetrated our consciousness). Or someone who tells you that he “loves French literature” and then announces that his favorites are Flaubert, Sartre, Camus, literally authors commonly selected in a French literature class (there are thousands of French authors so you know that it is not his taste that is driving him, but that he is following a script and borrowing his selection from general accepted guidelines. It would be different is he said Modiano, Cesbron, Déon, Vian, Allais, Bove, Gary, and Elsa Triolet. No two people have the same tastes so why should someone be exactly lined-up to the common canon?). The Bildungsphilister has a pathological vulnerability to cultural constructions. The same applies to the philisto-academic: he just follows topics used by others, ranking them by importance, without a shade of intellectual independence. In fact in academia the great dominant majority of workers are Bildungsphilisters, with a small minority of persons in possession of a brain on their own. It is even more widespread among philosophers: In fact I am still looking for a philosopher who could explain to me why the problem of induction is called “Hume’s problem”, not Huet’s problem.

So I find it always suspicious when someone’s erudition matches the common culture, with minimal variations. Or when someone’s bookshelves match the Penguin classics section at Heathrow airport. Typically they a know a few things but they are not truly driven by intellectual hunger. They might do well in school because they focus on the curriculum, given that they have no taste of their own.”

              -Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A jet dips her worship below the repaired bench