Archive for May, 2009
The Internet is Being There
Posted by Bob in Blasts from the Past on 05/30/2009
Posted by Bob on April 5, 2006 at 6:45 pm
“Stop HIDING behind the compter screen! Get out into the REAL WORLD!”
Since I am about the last person who can be accused of hiding anywhere, I am the perfect on to flush this nonsense down where it belongs.
I hate the telephone, relative to the internet, for a one reason: The person I am talking to is on a schedule. He calls me when I am thinking about something else, and he is on the way to something else, too.
A good deal of the time is spent trying to get get in what he needs to say to me when he can contact me personally.
On the internet, you are here when you feel like being here. I do not have to remember your telephone number or get ready to talk to you and intrduce you to the topic I am interested in at the moment, when your mind is somewhere else — otherwise you would be calling ME.
Phone call Stage One: Getting the number right and introducing the topic. Stage Two: Getting your input and my reaction to your input, all in the time allotted and at a time neither of us chose.
Personal visits are far, far worse t han the telephone. You have to GET there, which means that you have just been through a set of directions and little incidents.
Then comes all the “getting each comfortable.”
On the internet, you are here when you want to be here and I am here when I want to be here.
Onthe internet, the topic is already introduced when you sit and when I sit down.
I am mystified as to why this constitutes HIDING:
“I actually met so-and-so.”
My concern is not whether you physically sat down and saw the actual face of someone, but what did you SAY?
You can hide anything that was actually said in a talk about where he lives and how he looks.
Sight and smell are the province of a dog.
A dog can get nothing out of the Internet.
On the internet, if you tell someone you were talking to somebody on it, all you can discuss is WHAT YOU SAID.
I think the person who you of “hiding behind the computer screen” is the one who wants to hide. He wants to talk about where he was and how he was THERE, not about hwat was said, which is province of the human mind.
If anyone ever really reads and thinks about what I say, he will realize this is a repetition. The person who talks endlessly about “liars” is a liar. The person who talks endlessly about Hate is a hater. The person who talks endlessly about “hiding” is hiding.
That is the kind of thinking an interrogator does. It is the kind of thinking an interrogator gets so good at that he is paid for it.
Being there physically is a substitute for being there mentally.
Preaching to the Choir
Posted by Bob in Blasts from the Past, Coaching Session on 05/30/2009
Posted by Bob on December 27, 2005 at 9:00 pm
Don’t ever underestimate the importance of preaching to the choir.
Christianity, whatever you believe about it, was the most successful movement in history. Even an athiest who does not study the history of Christianity is a fool.
Those who spread Christianity did not say, “OK, you’re baptised, now I’ll go somewhere else and leave you to yourself.”
Christianity insisted that everybody, including the choir, show up at least once a week for a sermon. Every service began with a recitation of the Creed.
The entire congregation had to gather at least once a week and reassert its loyalty and be preached to.
Including the choir.
The Basics Don’t Change
Posted by Bob in Blasts from the Past, Comment Responses, Musings about Life on 05/26/2009
In the previous article I said that Bob has been repeating the same thing for roughly 30 years, I want to clarify that statement since it can be intrepreted as a slight. I didnt mean it as a slight. Bob has been hammering on the basics and the basics just don’t change!
The Basics Don’t Change
Posted by Bob on September 22, 2004 at 10:49 am
An old professor friend of mine was very enthusiastic about “Why Johnny Can’y Think: America’s Professor-Priesthood.” He was also amazed about how consistent my ideas have been since we met forty years ago.
With due apologies I pointed out to him that his ideas about arithmetic were also consistent. Since I met him he got his PhD and had a long academic career, but he still repeats “2+2=4″ today exactly the same way he did when he was eight years old.
I am still looking at the most basic facts of politics and economics. They are exactly like 2+2=4. They don’t change.
Rememer that there was a whole theory and university science of medicine before they accepted the existence of bacteria. There was a whole university study of economics, called political economy, long before anybody ever heard of supply and demand. Before they heard of bacteria or supply and demand, both medicine and economics were destructive.
I am still trying to introduce the idea of wordism and the professional biases of social scientists into the field of social science. Until that is done, they are still exactly where medicine was when doctors regularly bled people to death and economics was when it pushed the old Mercantile System. They are stupid and they are wrong.
I have spent a frustrating lifetime trying to talk real social science to the social science professors who sell bleeding and Mercantilism in the social sciences today. I will keep doing it.
I will also keep saying 2+2=4.
I am indeed very consistent.
Literary Criticism – 30 Years of Bob
As a college student, for the sake of your grade, you often submit to do many assignments that you would rather not partake in. One such assignment was the literary deconstruction of a 20th century poem.
In the renaissance, when the classical works were rediscovered, you only had the works to interpret from. You judged form and substance to gain what the author was trying to convey, and you wrote an essay on your findings. Most 20th century authors are still alive or have written later works to clarify just exactly what they wanted to say. However you occasionally come across authors, such as Bob, with works that say exactly what they mean. Yet this relic of the renaissance tortures students to this very day.
A few weeks back when the majority of the articles were Bob’s, I performed a readability test on the blog and I found that the ease of reading was on par with popular novels. This astounded me, since the same index said my writing was as easy to read as an academic paper. I started searching his books and articles for ideas and maybe find a way to help make my writing easier to read.
Bob says that it takes practice. I believe him but I wonder just how much Mephistophilis had to do with it.
Right now, I’m in the process of reading “A Plague on Both Your Houses” and two things have jumped out at me. The first is that Bob has been saying roughly the same thing for thirty some odd years. The second is the form and evolution of his style of writing.
Plauge, as far as formating goes, it is the antithesis to WOL. The paragraphs are long and there are no line breaks, which help to keep the eye from wandering. However, I found the tone of the book to be a bit more forceful. direct. energetic. Bob before he was tired.
WOL has a house style that is unique. For a decade the house style has been the same; short sentances, short paragraphs, lots of line breaks. Bob did this because he found that unorthodox writing styles help capture the attention of the reader better.
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Bob’s Books
Bob's first book - 1976
A Plague On Both Your HousesBob's second book - 1982
THE NEW RIGHT PAPERSBob's deadliest book - 2004
Why Johnny Can't Think:
America's Professor-PriesthoodWhy Johnny Can't Think ebook zip
pwrd: Phu=9Ad5
Simmons
Posted by Bob in Comment Responses on 05/31/2009
2 Comments