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People judge metaphors as bad when they do not understand them. Perhaps. The catfish thing - in some respects, O BH - was meant as a comment on the fact that recent posts seem to question your credentials based on your online identity. You've seen them: Bill Harris is x, is y. Whatever. The recent documentary, Catfish, is also about people whose online existence does not match their fleshworld existence. The documentary takes its name from words spoken by one of the gentlemen interviewed in the film, who explains that catfish serve an excellent purpose in the export of tuna fish (if I recall correctly). For, when tuna are transported alone, the meat worsens in transit. Put a catfish in the tanks with them, though, and it keeps nipping and biting at the tuna, and as a result the catfish keeps the tuna meat lean. From this is extrapolated the idea that antagonists can be useful at keeping us on our toes. How's that for a metaphor? Maybe not one to live by. But perhaps it'll do... However antagonistic you often are on this listserv, O BH, I was implying - obtusely, of course - that there may be some use in what you do (although I often share with Brother Sinnerbrink's groans, too). Otherwise, if obtuseness is that of which I am certainly guilty, apologies. I am sorry (you don't see those words that often on film-philosophy!). But, if I might endeavour to excuse myself, when we pass from Kant to BwO to Verhoeven to Kieslowski to Spinoza to the Scolastic Era to Wittgenstein to Platonized Christianity to bad Biology to Kosher studies in under 100 words, well, maybe I am not the only one guilty of obtuseness. For I am quite happy to say that I have absolutely no idea what this means; it is a (muddy) flurry of impressive names and ideas, with some of which I am more familiar than others, but the road from one to the next is not obvious to me and I get lost every time I read it (several times so far). You will - probably correctly - explain to me in your upcoming and last-word obsessed riposte that this is because I am stupid. You will eruditely (and if we are - very - lucky with some wit) tell me that I am not possessed of the wherewithal to see the big picture that emerges from all of these ingredients, even if I know what some of the ingredients are. From your view, this might be because few are those on Film-Philosophy who reach the appropriate heights of scholarship that you esteem correct. Sorry - my feeble brain and body (i.e. 'I') do their/my best. From my own view, I was hoping Film-Philosophy would be a forum for learning and, in particular, good-humoured exchange. Good humour and email are not easy bed buddies, and perhaps limply have I tried to marry them at times on this list. But too often, I have read bad humoured, even bad natured, exchanges that are only interested, as far as I can tell, in making it clear that 'I am cleverer than thou.' Well, rest assured, my family of film-philosophers, you are all cleverer than me. You, O BH in particular, can make this clear in your next message. So in many ways, reminding me of my idiocy, as you have done, O BH, in your message below, is a gentle, perhaps even Catfish-like, achievement. But it does make me wonder whether I'd ever want to raise a glass with you. Shucks - perhaps it's (my over-Platonised sense of) Christmas - but i take that back. Cheers to you all! >> Bad metaphors make for poor judgment. >> >> My work at Vincennes, under Deleuze, was on Kant's Third Critique. >> Yet perhaps that's too muddy for you, as well. >> >> OTH, Deleuze's concept of the Body without Organs appears in Anti- >> Oedipus. This was not discussed in class because Deleuze--rare among >> academics--categorically refusd to discuss his own work therein. >> >> Verhoven--unlike, say, Kieslowski-- was famous for employing camp to >> illustrate larger points of meaning. This is more or less consistent >> with Spinozan univocity, which itself extends back into The >> Scholastic Era...and forward to W's Tractatus. >> >> In this perspective, depth and elevation totally miss the point: >> it's all on the surface which, in Showgirls, is made as glossy as >> possible. All we can do is make a case with facts within a given >> frame of reference. >> >> Calling others 'catfish', then, reeks of the idiocy of an over- >> Platonized Christianity. It's also bad Biology, derived from the >> Kosher obsession with 'clean' and 'dirty' fish. >> >> BH -- Film-Philosophy After hitting 'reply' please always delete the text of the message you are replying to To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to: [log in to unmask] Or visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/film-philosophy.html For technical help email: [log in to unmask], not the list -- Film-Philosophy journal: http://www.film-philosophy.com/ Film-Philosophy Conference (6-8 July 2011): http://www.film-philosophy.com/conference/ Contact: [log in to unmask] --