Thank you Dirk - appreciate that. I'll note: I do get something out of it! All of these people help support TIP, and I'm grateful to them for that. But I do honestly enjoy reading these as well, the quality was *really* good this year.
Hear, hear! It sometimes feels as if I've been drawn along a walk with a modern day Socrates.. fearlessly, empahically exploring, observing and sharing his, Erik's vision.
I will share here my response to Tim Dingman's post "On Jargon:"
Fantastic read. Somewhat related, somewhat tangential, one of my posts will be about (with imprecise measures of tongue and cheek) "the etymological fossil record" of "Classification warfare." Most words that now have reductive implications originally had the inverse sentiment or context in its etymology. Words like quaint, trite, contrived, trivial, arbitrary, mere and mundane all had positive implications or neutral-to-positive use cases.
For example, "trivial" comes from Trivium which is literally a common meeting place or common ground (where roads intersect). However, if you trivialize the common people as "commoners," the implication is clearly bad. Ironically, common ground is now valuable because of its... uh... rarity.
Similarly, "arbitrary" came from arbiters arbitrating, a use case which still survives. An arbiter has a specialized role as an umpire or mediator and therefore relies on trust in their professional opinion. But something that is arbitrary is "contrived as if by mere opinion," and may be no better than any other random opinion. Such a link might seem a stretch, but just look at what is happening to the words "elite" and "privilege" as is implied by your own use.
There's a way in which the rhetorical use of jargonificationalism manages to draw the exact attention you hope to evade, and your words will resurrect to pataphysique your obdurance.
Merely reading your summary and the two paragraph excerpt on resilience got me choked up. I'm writing this while looking at the video monitor of my 2 year old son raging against his afternoon nap. Grateful all over again.
The post about slightly disguised yin and yang energy that reflects thousands years of sexism. We are the ongoing women's movement that continues to inspire and imbue today's women and girls with a much different energy. Don't get me wrong, I love the Ching. It contains millennia ...thousands of years of wisdom. Jung studied and used the book. There are innate energies and attitudes that continue to contain and activate the words and ideas of the I Ching, but even that has one aspect that needs shifting to reflect what's happening today with women and girls. New found courage and the inspiration it contains. Oh, I know, there is still alot of old energy around the female and male arthetypes. It exists, especially in Red states, and other nations who are still stuck.. the ME.. And that kind of thinking is related to Trump and his ilk. So, for all the men we love and admire, for every gender of Seniors, millennials, Gen Zers and small children, we want to be recognized in modern terms. We are the trans, the queens, the Mothers, the Grannies.. the ones who marched on DC. Women who went to Afghanistan. Women who marched, and danced to the joy that's lives at the core of insurrection. We're still lovers and caregivers, but we're no longer 'that'...
I'm always impressed by your generosity when you do these, and the variety of responses you get is a real testament to the broadness of your mind.
Thank you Dirk - appreciate that. I'll note: I do get something out of it! All of these people help support TIP, and I'm grateful to them for that. But I do honestly enjoy reading these as well, the quality was *really* good this year.
Hear, hear! It sometimes feels as if I've been drawn along a walk with a modern day Socrates.. fearlessly, empahically exploring, observing and sharing his, Erik's vision.
Ditto! I double down on what Dirk says...Feels like I've been lost and now I've found a missing. part!
I will share here my response to Tim Dingman's post "On Jargon:"
Fantastic read. Somewhat related, somewhat tangential, one of my posts will be about (with imprecise measures of tongue and cheek) "the etymological fossil record" of "Classification warfare." Most words that now have reductive implications originally had the inverse sentiment or context in its etymology. Words like quaint, trite, contrived, trivial, arbitrary, mere and mundane all had positive implications or neutral-to-positive use cases.
For example, "trivial" comes from Trivium which is literally a common meeting place or common ground (where roads intersect). However, if you trivialize the common people as "commoners," the implication is clearly bad. Ironically, common ground is now valuable because of its... uh... rarity.
Similarly, "arbitrary" came from arbiters arbitrating, a use case which still survives. An arbiter has a specialized role as an umpire or mediator and therefore relies on trust in their professional opinion. But something that is arbitrary is "contrived as if by mere opinion," and may be no better than any other random opinion. Such a link might seem a stretch, but just look at what is happening to the words "elite" and "privilege" as is implied by your own use.
There's a way in which the rhetorical use of jargonificationalism manages to draw the exact attention you hope to evade, and your words will resurrect to pataphysique your obdurance.
The etymologies were sourced from etymonline
Merely reading your summary and the two paragraph excerpt on resilience got me choked up. I'm writing this while looking at the video monitor of my 2 year old son raging against his afternoon nap. Grateful all over again.
Hah! I lived that raging with my daughter. Usually, thankfully, it quickly subsided.. But DIO, sometimes I felt like a child abuser..
Thank you for doing this! Looking forward to going through these. Enjoyed several ones from Part 1.
Thanks Erik!
So much here to learn, so much to enjoy. Great job!
If brevity is the soul of wit, why are so many sub-stackers so verbose. Some sort of performance anxiety..... as with the jargon maniacs?
The post about slightly disguised yin and yang energy that reflects thousands years of sexism. We are the ongoing women's movement that continues to inspire and imbue today's women and girls with a much different energy. Don't get me wrong, I love the Ching. It contains millennia ...thousands of years of wisdom. Jung studied and used the book. There are innate energies and attitudes that continue to contain and activate the words and ideas of the I Ching, but even that has one aspect that needs shifting to reflect what's happening today with women and girls. New found courage and the inspiration it contains. Oh, I know, there is still alot of old energy around the female and male arthetypes. It exists, especially in Red states, and other nations who are still stuck.. the ME.. And that kind of thinking is related to Trump and his ilk. So, for all the men we love and admire, for every gender of Seniors, millennials, Gen Zers and small children, we want to be recognized in modern terms. We are the trans, the queens, the Mothers, the Grannies.. the ones who marched on DC. Women who went to Afghanistan. Women who marched, and danced to the joy that's lives at the core of insurrection. We're still lovers and caregivers, but we're no longer 'that'...
I found the format absolutely inspiring,
Thanks for sharing!
Spot on about jargon gussying up simple ideas, and shoutout to Matt Levine for being the best de-gussier in the business