One weirdo to another

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN & THE ANGRY NERD AUNT

“I am totally into anime/cartoons/manga and all associated with it. But when my five-year old niece can’t even google MLP without the first 10 pictures being pony sex, we have a problem.” Angry Nerd Aunt

: “game, n, a contest played according to rules & decided by skill, strength or luck.” (The Concise Oxford Dictionary

: “The meaning of a word is its use in the language.” Ludwig Wittgenstein, “Philosophical Investigations”

As normally understood a game is a game by virtue of the fact that it is not a part of reality, not part of the serious business of life. As such, it is a self-contained fantasy world in which the players engage with each other according to the rules and the winner emerges by skill, strength or luck. And so it is with Angry Nerd aunt who is totally into anime/cartoons/manga and similarly with her niece into whose fantasy world enters reality in the form of two large greasy men who make an obscene remark about her game. It has ceased to be a game at all. It has been destroyed. Angry Nerd Aunt and her niece have been orphaned by an intrusive, ham-handed reality.

However, hope emerges for the gamesters in the form of the later Wittgenstein who maintained that there is no reality lying behind the “language games” which we all play whether we like it or not. All words derive their meaning from the role they play in that language game and so there can be no meaning having reference to a non-linguistic reality lying behind, so to speak, our use of words. In other words, words themselves are ontologically primary.

For Wittgenstein reality itself consists of individual language games which follow the rules inherent in their use. The meaning of the words used in Bitch, for example, is derived from their use. We know what the words used in Bitch mean in the context of Bitch itself. There is no further context since Bitch constitutes a “form of life.” But what is a form of life?

For Wittgenstein Bitch is a web of language use connected by “family resemblances “which jointly constitute a “form of life.” The rules of language are analogous to the rules of a game hence to say something is analogous to making a “move” in a game. It is to move a counter but in this case it is a linguistic counter and not, for example, a chess piece. In Wittgenstenian terms, I am playing a game now. It’s called the philosophy game but one must never suppose that it is frivolous. All language games, including the philosophy game, are deadly serious.

So there we are. Angry Nerd Aunt need not have a problem. Her intellectual cramps can be dissolved. All that is required of her is to make a move, to transfer her anime/cartoons/manga games onto the plane of Wittgenstein’s language games, onto the plane of his form of life. She must always remember that the game’s the thing.

A pleasure as always.

Cheerio!