Why being against metaphysics is so cool-a schoolyard explanation-

It seems these days that all the cool kids are against metaphysics and onto-otheology, and all that boring stuff.  Today it is hip to talk about the betrayal of faith, heretical orthodoxy, and the  me-ontology of the Cross. 

Why is this?

Well, perhaps we could look to Heidegger or Freud and all those other folks who prepared the way for the p_stmodern.  But I suggest that it began earlier than our first reading of Being and Time (or what is Being and Nothingness, or Being and Event).  It begins before our first introduction to teenage angst and grunge music (oh how I loved the '90s!). 

Yes, our aversion to metaphysics coincides with our first glimmers of social pressure, our first awkward steps of independence, our first riotous disputes over games that didn't exist until we made them up (yes we are all social constructivists).  I'm talking nothing else but the schoolyard education into overcoming metaphysics. 

Here are my top five reasons for why metaphysics is not cool:
5) Because the cool kids always talked back to the teachers , and are always very witty (showing that we all desire to betray the master discourse).

4) Because all the cool stuff is outside the classroom, i.e. the playground (showing that the play of the signifier escapes the ground of the signified).

3) Because raising your hand to answer a question is a phallic will-to-power encouraged by teachers (showing that 'answering' is always coercion while questioning is freedom).

2) Because all the little boys chase the little girls around the playground, but don't know why they do it (showing that  flows of desire shape reality).

1) Lastly, because it is always more fun to say "Is not!" right after "Is too!" during a schoolyard argument (showing that we all intuitively know that khora, the 'is not' of reality, precedes all existences).

Perhaps I'm still dealing with pre-pubescent insecurities...?

(what are other schoolyard reasons?)

Comments

[Jason Hesiak]

wow that's deep, man. i especially like number four since that's pretty much all i talk about :) one thing, though...on number one...that strikes me as a rather modern twist on "khora", no...?? although i guess maybe if it was for the sake of schoolyard play, then ok. but...khora for the ancients strikes me as something that is still full...or at least positive in some way...as more along the lines of possibility AS SUCH rather than possibility of what might be in the future. i think all "things" (referring to possibility as a "thing" here, loosely) for those ancient wierdos had a certain life to it. eh?

[Jason Clark]

Very funny and witty Geoff.

Reminds me of the Archimedes playing football(soccer) by Monty Python, in terms of teaching philosophy via humor.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Monty-Pythons-International-Philosophy-sketch-Archimedes-playing-soccer

[Jason Hesiak]

wait...yes, funny...was "is not, is too" supposed to be the joke and i'm just retarded and mised it (hence my comment on khora)?

[bryne allport]

after a long afternoon of slogging through interpretations of Heidegger, this was a welcome laugh-out-loud. all i know is that when it comes time to pick sides, i want on Marion's team.

[geoff holsclaw]

maybe next week we can pick teams for the 'over-coming onto-theology' dodgeball tournament? Who would be the teams captians? (I hope that skinny guy with the long next isn't picked last...wait that's me!)

Dodgeball is of course the perfect schoolyard game because one tries avoiding all presences, attempting to situate oneself in the void...

[Peter Rollins]

Very good :)

I would have to add the fact that, in the midst of all the dusty old teachers, there are always one or two (in cultural studies or French) who don't quite fit in with the school and who encourage the cool kids to question - they are the ones with the black polo-necks who drink coffee like its going out of fashion and who smoke round the back of the bike sheds with the kids.

[Jason Hesiak]

apparently the game of tag presents the one who is "it" with a serious metaphysical problem/tension when they have to try to reach out and touch someone while everyone else is a-voiding them. the one who is "it" must be really uncool.

[Jason Hesiak]

or...are there metaphysical "projects"? baseball, handball...projectiles being either thrown at a blank wall or hit to infinity. angels standing alone in the out-field with nothing to do. but those in that dodgeball tournament are in the audience yelling wildly at the other team about who their daddy is...while eating phallic sausages.

did i step over the (cartesian) line? no one plays football in the shoolyard.

[Nathanael]

I need some help. I am completely baffled by the way that deconstructionists / social constructionists / (insert postmodern category here) speak of the world. So much of the conversation seems to be opaque and nonsensical. Perhaps the best way to help me is to assign some reading that might aide in unraveling what is being said here. Without any such help, I am doomed to go on thinking ill of most ‘postmodern’ discourse. Any help is much appreciated.

[Jason Hesiak]

Abandoning this particular game for a moment...along similar lines...here are some memorable giggle producing quotes from a book called Fishing from the Pavement, by Daniel Libeskind (architect):

"Nerves are crumpled mystics imploring a boiled Minotaur to quarantine the innocent perennial on the Champs Elysees."

Cenotaph for Orion accidentally killed with Chaos: broken hour glass, roof extruded in gypsum, negligee on the veranda. Better than a dozen cures or Descartes sum! Conclusions repay the martyred gods' delerium."

"Are you entranced by fourteen hundred theorems, a dappled rabbit, cows bleating in the attic, ineffable apples? After all, the Universal Savant is airborne on the back of a billion Sibyls who shape cameos for few cents while flying."

"My chanson de geste resonates - higgedy-piggledy - abandons order, fear without erratum. Nice doctrine for governing the indignent; formerly columns, later maxwells."

"Diaphanous brain-dice are insulating matter for terracota angels locked in a dendrite. The depraved sing accolades to Science."

"On the street come the morn a nickel-plated Medusa shrieking: 'Impossible foundling arrested, his head projected on the Axis of Certainty!'"

"Watched by the scietific clique, the body's Hundred-Eyed entablature, destroyed, vanishes like the remaining tessarae."

"The West, televised for perverts who are euphoric until the trepanation, will attack the unconscious with mere life."

"I felt an itch in the repressive sigh - siezure without tears."

[Thomas Jay Oord]

I didn't realize that metaphysicians like myself were so bad! : ) Of course, the kind of metaphysics being ridiculed here is not, for the most part, the kind of metaphysics I think is still needed today...

Tom