IN PRAISE OF THE "DIFF-ERRANT"
The Knight Errant was lost on the death bed of Don Quixote. If that was not enough Monty Python added extra dirt onto that grave and enough to prevent even a turn let alone a new sit-up. However all is not lost. Even when Awks de-ride Derrida and even when a "Butwhatif" bombardes our moral selves with self-interest as security ( so long as you can afford it) all is not lost. Let me introduce to you the "DIFF-ERRANT".
This person bent upon fragments and difference says no to idle indifference. This rather playful, almost anarchistic, adventurer finds through noble and dignified frolics a way ahead. This always wandering wondering soul at play insists on the personal responsibility for others to be diff-errant too. Yet resists warlike ordering of things when it is people that must come first.
Under the crest is written " Errare humanium est".
A very recognisable self-portrait, Zola. Except that you enjoy undignified frolics as well as dignified ones.
ReplyDeleteIn Lapland we have a very special cheese cake/pudding.
ReplyDeleteThe grandmother in tradition is the one to bite the testicles and chew them up into a mushy mixture before cooking.
Anymore of that kind of response and you will get a visit from a special grannie from the north methinks.
Undignified indeed.
Diff-errant: that's wonderful. And half of me loves it, Zola. And yet will it be enough? Or might it be too much?
ReplyDeleteOne need not inspect too closely the etymological baggage you'll be carrying for your journey, Zola, to realise the problems. Open that rucksack and it spills out:
For it wasn't too long before 'ir-ing' - travelling and wandering - became 'erring'. Ego's 'ir-ing' soon got judged by alter as downright, arrant erring.
("When 'they' ir, go their own way, see how soon they make mistakes; where only 'our' ir-ings are truly not erring, only 'we' have found the right path.")
Why not leave it off with such flights of fancy? Nothing but a source of deep, bloody contention, IMHO.
I simply don't feel the need to battle 'alter' - be it Binners, Bush or Ruth Kelly - to prove my chivalry, my heroic commitment to my ideals. And equally, I just don't feel the need to discuss this all with them, to engage them in deep inter-cultural communication. My life's perfectly fine without trying to understand their visions of human fulfilment. I don't need anything to 'come between' myself and these 'others'.
Self-interest seems just fine, thank you very much, as all the common, thin language I need between - int-er - others. "Let's change the conversation please, Osama, to the weather. Else I'm going feel like smashing your face in soon if we carry on like this."
I'll happily tread this more pedestrian, more this-worldly, path with all of them. All Britishly talking about the weather. That's the only way I can see us all walking together; all of us reminded, when we need reminding, that there are far more interesting, more adventurous, definitely more chivalrous paths than this. And that they are roads to hell.
PS: I don't understand your point that interest-governed paths are only for the rich; that they necessarily must have toll-booths to them. It was hardly poverty that steered Hutus and Tutsis, Serbs and Croats, Sunnis and Shias, Israeli and Palestinian, away from paths of interest-based mutual accommodation. Too damned chivalrous by half - all of them.
Just re-read that, Zola. Maybe I should have added: I might be wrong.
ReplyDeleteOr then again, should that be: I'm bloody well convinced I'm right, Zola. But if you disagree, I won't get violent. Because it'll hurt me as well as you.
By the way.. How's the weather there?
ReplyDeleteCold with snow at about minus 15 degrees centigrade. No wind.
ReplyDeleteI've just telephoned up to me Dad. He is going to send storms your way soon. Oh you are moody today.
And you tried to steal me fire.
Butwhatif : you could always put a Hex on me or put out a wanted dead or alive post ( paid for by tax payers money).
ReplyDeleteGo and hide in the forests I would and wait until .... got yer.
Ouch.
ReplyDeleteSeriously Butwhatif : Might we debate that "Prisoners Dilemma" if i post it. Who knows .....
ReplyDeleteBTW : Did i ever wish you a happy new year? If not I should have done.
Remember me birch bark canoe is softer than me byte.
Prisoner's Dilemma - I always grass the other guy.
ReplyDeletePrisoner's Dilemma 2 - I sometimes lie ;)
ReplyDeleteThere is still another bit methinks but who wins through self-interest deals?
ReplyDeleteIn the long run, nobody, as I recall. But in the real world, who repeatedly goes through exactly the same decision-making process?
ReplyDeleteMaybe one that "thinks full time".
ReplyDeleteFeels full time?
I try not to think full-time. It gives me a headache.
ReplyDeleteFeeling full-time is unavoidable, though. If I understand "feeling" correctly.
I agree me ole Swagi.
ReplyDeleteHoly shit.
i join you.
Make that a party of three.
ReplyDeleteAnyway now anyday now I shall be released ...
ReplyDeleteLove to read a post from you on the Prisoners Dilemma, Zola. I'm currently reading The Mind Game, can't remember who by, think it was a debut novel - where some of these games are taken a step too far. But maybe it's better if I dig out my dusty notes on Axelrod. I'm sure he has something to say about repetition/reiteration of games, going through the same decision making processes, if I remember rightly, and how that might alter the structure of the payoffs.
ReplyDeleteSzwagi would love that. Hei, why not. I might enjoy too and you ? Lets give it a go. Fuck all to lose as they say.
ReplyDeleteDo you have a website?
If not OK we use mine or ....
BWI - who wrote 'The Mind Game ' ?
ReplyDeleteLike to read that.
And, I want to play, OK ?
Not sure LB but many I suspect. Just check on Wittgi stuff.
ReplyDeleteSinging it all was "Just give me those mind games ... " John L.
Butwhatif will give more.
But maybe the Dice Man book is one book that takes mind games too far.
We all get it in the end.
I know of the Dice Man.
ReplyDeleteWhat was the book called that was about War Games - very dark..games played for real, damn, it was scary, and cannot remember the title ...?
Best you and I do not remember this because the ..............
ReplyDeleteMust not lead the young into .... or lead older ones into angst.
We must be responsible for the other you know.
ZoZo !
ReplyDeleteDon't tease !
I have always wanted to do it......
suffer with me
ReplyDeleteIt's The Mind Game, by Hector Macdonald, LB. It's a kind of Alex Garland-y, Beach-y thing, with intellectual pretensions. Pretensions, I said. But I've started so I'll finish.
ReplyDeleteThanks Butwhatif : Review it for us pleezze. Mean that I do.
ReplyDeleteGives you a focus it does.
Gives us all an education OK.
Please do it.
Damn it just do it.
Yes, Butwhatif..........that would be good.
ReplyDeletePlease ?
I'll speedily get on with finishing it then.
ReplyDeleteBut, so far, the novel doesn't engage with what I think is the most interesting mixed-motive game/dilemma out there: the so-called 'battle of the sexes'.
Jim and Jane both want to spend Saturday together. Yet Jim wants to go to a romantic movie, whilst Jane wants to go to Highbury to watch Arsenal play (just to make the telling of this battle altogether less unPC). The overriding preference of both of them, however, is to do things together.
Who 'wins'? And how?
Seems to me to be a far more frequent, real life dilemma than the PD.
Whose (second) preferences will win out, when it comes to how the Awkward Squad (and us hangers on) will hang together? ... If hanging together is indeed the first preference of all.
I'm sexy anyway no fears ....
ReplyDeleteBring it on.
Compromise.
ReplyDeleteJules et Jim can both go and watch the Arsenal players 'dogging' romantically on a Saturday night.
At a local park near you.
Does that local park game involving more than two players, boldnegotiator? If so, then it's a problem that has always er, dogged technicians of rational choice.
ReplyDeleteIt is relatively new to me - having been a long time ex-pat.
ReplyDelete(though, obviously, the concept is well tried and tested)
However, I had to laugh when LavvyGirl checked the local website for her part of 'Wherever' and under 'places of interest' was a list of local 'dogging' sites.
Game Theory always reminds me of the cry of 'Fire!' in the cinema and the equally famous follow-on 'Make way - I am a necro-philiac'
Actually, it was a site for Neighbourhood Watch.
ReplyDeleteThe Organiser was mortified.........
I just wondered where it all was going on.............
Even better !!
ReplyDeleteDo you know the first recommendation for how to get your Neighbourhood Watch group up and running?
ReplyDelete"1. Arrange and organize a strong kick-off."
http://tinyurl.com/ypamh5
Clearly, that was written by one of those Arsenal footballers, before they discovered dogging.
"Off the field, my life used to be so meaningless. I used to peer out the window, all day long, drawing up minutes for the Neighbourhood Watch meeting, hoping to catch a burglar. Then I discovered Doggers United. Since I subscribed, my life's never been the same. Cos it's always a game of more than two halves."
'8. It is strongly suggested that a slogan be developed to tie in and "sell" the project. '
ReplyDeleteSick as a parrot?
You will be 'Over the Moon' as soon as you join 'Vicky Pollards are Us'.
Something to suit every taste and size - from the 'gnat's arse' to the 'channel tunnel' we promise satisfaction. Hic.
LavvyGirl can you suggest 'something for the ladies'?.
(I must remind you, Lavender, that 'Game Theory' is not what you think or hope).
i'm game
ReplyDeleteBTW : Butwhatif.
ReplyDeleteI hang to the left.
Me too, Zola. Usually.
ReplyDeleteBut (to pick up on that busy roads and seas theme Szwag's got going on): If France and Britain had seriously got it together, then deciding which side of the road to drive on would have been another battle of the sexes. Or at least at first. (The first shared preference: to drive on the same side of the road. The second conflicting preference: British left vs French right.)
If those high-up discussions failed, the decision would surely have to be taken on the ground. Multiple little games of "chicken" throughout Calais and Dover. Who wins?
"Her Majesty's Government today announced that all British drivers, once they are safely positioned on the left-hand side of the road, and once they are driving at 100mph, must visibly throw their steering wheels out of the window. Up yours Monsieur Mollet!"
Just to keep on the straight and narrow without confusion : I,like butwhatif, usually hang to the left. But not when I stand up at election time.
ReplyDeleteIf you are planning to visit the UK and happen to come from one of the many countries that drive on the wrong side of the road, the following advice, direct from the Ministry of Transport, is for you:
ReplyDelete“Visitors are informed that in the United Kingdom traffic drives on the left-hand side of the road. In the interests of safety, you are advised to practise this in your country of origin for a week or two before driving in the UK.”
http://geobay.com/0521c5
This particular series of articles is a little gem
"I sincerely hope that this website will be a fascinating source of information for everyone who is interested in the subject of standards and cultural idiosyncrasies."
ReplyDeleteThat's at least 20,000 people in Britain at the moment ... and counting, Merkin. Until the next news bulletin about Celebrity Big Bother. Where did those viewers learn how to write complaint letters, that's what I want to know.
BTW : When Sweden changed, in the 1960s, to drive on the righthand side it found, as predicted, that accidents declined.
ReplyDeleteResearch said, if I remember, that this was in part a biological thing concerning brain-body things that I would not dare to pretend to know. But just a thought.
I think there is also some research to show that weather patterns can be influenced by traffic circulation.
ReplyDeleteThe weather patterns of Dusseldorf, even without the longest bar traffic, were certainly awful. remember when the city needed to be shut down so many times as the smog became regular and the cars would be banned for a few hours.
ReplyDeletejust a memory not a scientist me.
I did a project one time under a couple of guys who were UN specialists. Was about Mexico City.
ReplyDeleteThese guys had worked there as major advisors to the Mex Govt about the pollution probs there. At that time they had a Car Reg No system to allocate usage of the roads - some had one day, others had another day.
The result?. Rich people could buy cars which alowed travel on either of the alternate days.
Doomed, I tell you, Mr Mannering.