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Working on my ecology & #philosophy book late last night. It occurred to me: since I'm not under any pressure to publish-or-perish, like university profs are, I can write not just any philosophy I like, but I can also write philosophy in any *style*.
So many of the great philosophers of the Western canon were rotten stylists. Nobody reads #Kant for the pleasure of his lyrical prose. Nobody reads reads #BertrandRussell or John #Rawls expecting to be uplifted to heaven.
But Beadrillard, Foucault, Rousseau, Camus, Eco, Barthes, and Berlin: Reading them is like listening to a work of performance art. You can hear them pacing about the room, ranting about something, stopping to smell a flower, then back to ranting again.
Plato has to be read aloud to be understood, accompanied by the syrinx and the lyre, and a generous bowl of wine.
Friedrich Nietzsche is a master stylist-- you read him and you hear Hendrix, Page, Gilmour, Slash, and May. (And Wagner. And-- maybe I better stop there.)
Friedrich Nietzsche is a master stylist-- you read him and you hear Hendrix, Page, Gilmour, Slash, and May. (And Wagner. And-- maybe I better stop there.)
This book I'm #writing is going to be not only a work of logical strength and clarity. It's going to be a work of unhinged exuberance. I warned you in my first book, "Dangerous Religion", that I write thought-operas, not essays. Well, this one is going to release the kraken.
So put your seatbelts on, people. Because you're trashing my planet with your climate crisis and your resurgent fascism, and you're going to hear from me. /end thread.
