Monthly Archives: March 2005

Another Letter.

This is from an email I sent around. Thought I’d try one more time.

Dear friends and acquaintances,

I own and pay for a vastly underutilized web domain called stupididea.com. It has resources to host many more images, a tremendous amount of text, perhaps some video. The following is the SHORT PITCH:

You may find of interest the following resources:

THE LONG PITCH:

Stupididea.com’s original concept centered around the wiki at
http://www.stupididea.com/mediawiki/ (running the same software as Wikipedia), where the plan was to accumulate “stupid ideas” and through debate and collaborative editing improve them to the point of being standalone white paper proposals. Later, I found that this concept has been well-implemented at halfbakery.com and shouldexist.org. I still work on my own stupid ideas, and invite others to do so, but I would like to open up the wiki to any kind of collaborative project/publication. For those who don’t know, the first principle of wiki publication is “be bold”, meaning don’t bother to ask permission first, only be considerate to other people’s work.

Everyone on this initial mailing is a Johnny, and the intention is for this to be a low-volume site, focusing on the specialized, esoteric, cult-like discourses and interests we all know and love. Making the wiki a more interesting place to visit would be a good use of the bandwidth, but I am eager to provide other services that people would find useful or gratifying. In particular, I can set you up with one of those weblogs you all have been hearing so much about (I can also install any open source web software that requires PHP and MySQL—search freshmeat.net). Some other ideas:

  • A listserv with a circumscribed, non-mailbox-clogging purpose (for example, as an expert knowledge query server: “Hey, what exactly is the deal with Boethius?”, “What things should I lie about on a law school application?”)
  • A bulletin board (forum)
  • A webzine publication (my suggestion: “The New Good: Culture and Ethics”)
  • An open-access photo gallery (ala http://www.flickr.com)
  • Your idea here
    —[Method]

    P.S. The only area where I intend to exercise a heavy editorial hand is in disallowing certain subjects that are amply served elsewhere on the Internet. This relates specifically to anime (but not to g-novels).

    I should be more explicit: if people would like their own web space (under a cool domain name, not you.bloggoober.com), would like to serve up their own media files (within reason), want space to start a project, just contact me at my email at the bottom of the page. I’ll give you ftp access and will help out with technical things.

Defeated!

So I said that I wasn’t sure, and now I remember why.

  • “you can’t selectively historicize.”-bill

[You can’t selectively historicize] if you’re going to approach a wide range of thought. And since it seems best to use history to give context to thought, rather than to explain thought, and since it seems wise to approach thought and history both separately and apart, it is “safe” to largely ignore history for the duration of a 4-year education. Some people will take the wrong cue, I think, and conclude that a study of history can be dispensed with entirely, since it seems superficially that thought can be solely guided by supposedly universal considerations, but whatever. They grow up or they don’t.

  • “I’m glad I’ve met at least one person who was an open monarchist, instead of all the crypto-monarchists” -bill

Further, as rb points outs, it may be a necessary condition for rigorous thinking about democracy and politics that one flirt with monarchism and antidemocratic thought for a time. I do think that you have to eventually learn to love democracy out of a respect for justice, rather than out of a rather coldhearted acquiescence to historical forces. Also, as bill points out, intellectual honesty in discussion and a true, rather than ironic, commitment to democracy seem to go together.

  • “it’s best for the freed minds to return to their own time outside of St. John’s’ classes” -hb

On the wisdom of this, I might be convinced that the senior year program overreaches, although I’ll have you know I like Wittgenstein. Actually, I’m not sure that we get that much out of Heidegger…

  • ”“monarchism” at St. John’s is a non-entity” -rp

[Monarchism at St. John’s is a non-entity] as a substantial sect, although I believe that anyone from the outside would perceive a, like, patina of antidemocratic sentiment, especially toward the end of senior year, that would have to be described as something like monarchism. I should also mention that the idea of “monarchism” as a coherent political position in America amuses me, which is why I keep bringing it up.

  • “Johnnies leave about as heterogenous as they come in”-rb

Your point is well-taken, especially about objectivists and Mabel. It could even be argued that the degree of genuine intellectual diversity, as compared to some imagined university, is exceptional. It spans a political spectrum, includes religionists and atheists, and folds in various subcultures. Yeah, amongst the melee kids, the stoners, the ravers, the hiphoppers, the waltzers, the cape people, the gym rats, the math kids, the objectivists, the environmentalists, the protestants, the catholics, etcetera, etcetera, there are some dyed-in-the-wool monarchists, no joke, but again, whatever.

More, later.