Boys on Bikes

I posted a comment on this bitch but it was deleted. It concerned the girl walking home along at 3:00AM in the morning and the fact that she was lucky that all the boys on their bikes did was rev their motors. Was I wrong? Was I politically incorrect? Do I need sensitivity training? Write back soon.

A WASTE OF TIME?

Thank you for your kind thoughts. However, you raise an interesting question – what constitutes a “waste of time?” This, of course, will vary with the particular individual involved but I think we can sketch out the concept in broad strokes. Let’s start at the bottom of the scale.

1. A Waste of Digital Space

Note the comment immediately preceding mine. Saying nothing, devoid of reflection, this comment is little more than what I have elsewhere simply called a “brain fart.” One thinks of the effort and ingenuity involved in the development of Internet Technology but here we see little more than a waste of digital space, of mindlessness in action. Ordinarily when one comments on a bitch (or another commenter) one attempts to enter into the mind of the bitcher to see what makes him tick, to scrutinize his background philosophy. However, in the case of the waste of digital space there is no mind, no background philosophy. There is nothing, only a vacuum. Here we see a waste of time in its absolute form, a brain fart, a waste of digital space.

2. Stupidity on the March

Instead of the waste of digital space what we see here are those suffering from a severe conceptual shortfall. What does that mean? It means that the individual is unable to give reasons for his assertions which, in his view, are simply self-validating. In his view his assertions are necessarily true because he has uttered them. Unlike the waste of digital space he has the ability to articulate an opinion but it ends there. He lacks conceptual perspective and so to engage him in dialogue is a futile task. Staring dumbly out of the iron cage of his stupidity, the level of his thought rises only to the filling he will put into his next sandwich.

3. The Philosopher

Here we have attained the highest level of commenter, whether of bitches or of other commenters. What, you ask, distinguishes the philosopher from the common run? The philosopher habitually asks the question “why?” He seeks understanding. His mind is alive. When he reads a bitch he never just reads the words but rather engages the quality of the mind of the bitcher itself. For him the character of the bitcher is irrelevant. He seeks to analyze the bitcher’s mind. It is second nature to him.

But he doesn’t stop there. He is also a teacher, modelling intelligent, reflective thought in the hope that one, perhaps two other commenters might take heed and follow his example. For the philosopher is necessarily a teacher, whether in the mode of the Socratic gadfly (“What do you mean?” “How do you know?”) or in the fashion of the transcendental Immanuel Kant and his “A Critique of Pure Reason.” As a consequence the philosopher’s comments can never, no never, be considered a “waste of time.” As you might suspect, I fall into the last category.

A pleasure as always,

Cheerio!