Language and Revolution: a Modestly Proposed (No Futures) Exchange

=By= Mark Epstein

Mark Twain courtesy Freanking News.

Editor’s Note: In an outstanding, and entertaining, example of word play to expose the lies that are hidden in plain hearing (and sight) if only (countryfolk) lend an ear [OK two ears]. Thank you Mark Epstein! – Rowan Wolf

The following is a remarkable exchange we recorded for the Unipolar Oligarchical Observer in our very popular “Principles of the Sell-Out: Sell it as Principled” section, popularly known as “Adapt (and Publish) or Perish.” Both protagonists are remarkable in their own right, and certainly need no further introduction: Snarly Blanders, the Dependent Senator from [Ver]mont, known for his groundbreaking slogans “political revolution” and “a lack of future to believe in” and Foam Stompsky, the indispensable nation’s indispensable intellectual, a professional blinguist, who will help educate our readers in today’s most important universal principle: language is always more important than reality. Professor Stompsky is also widely known for his Democracy Acquisition Device, which he postulated already many decades ago, but which is now really coming into its own (with many modifications).

Snarly Blanders: Professor Stompsky, as you undoubtedly know millions of idealistic youth have answered my call for “political revolution”. My Mr. Punch’s Glimpses of the Obvious on the role of finance capital, Wall St., and generally the corporate oligarchy in running the Empire for their benefit have been extremely successful. So successful in fact that I was a serious contender for the Presidential nomination in the Damnocratic Party. Many of these millions thought I was referring to reality when speaking about “revolution.” Could you give me some tips to better persuade these serious, but still primitively emotional and realistic, followers that “revolution” is only a word, one mostly used by Madison Ave, and that those who believe in reality are seriously retro? As you know in these postmodern times “socialism” is also only a word, it has nothing to do with “class”, let alone “class-struggle,” and least of all with any traditions that rely on those old-fogey realists, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Gramsci or Luxemburg! Why do you think our Korporativersities still even allow such antediluvian nonsense to be mentioned in our hallowed hall(e)s of academic bloviation? Too many, foreign, influences… alien in fact… I do of course celebrate diversity, and especially ‘identity’, in fact every loyal oligarchical subject knows the duopoly consists of almost identical twins: the key difference is the language they use, not the realities they both equally contribute to devolve. Yes, identity and diversity Ueber Alles: language not reality. Since you are an expert in blinguistics, perhaps you can assist me in polishing my theoretical bling credentials, and help persuade those followers that ‘foreign policy’ is just a word, and a word devoted to aliens also… I really cannot face thinking about alienation in any form, especially from my supporters, since my acceptance at Capitol Hill dinners and Madison Ave powwows might be compromised, and is premised on sheepdogging them to the Damnocrats…

Foam Stompsky: Why Snarly, thanks for asking! As you know I am the indispensable intellectual (certainly in this indispensable nation, but probably globally as well… why be modest (except when proposing) when language allows so much more?…), and I am glad you asked my spokesperson, ombudsman, oracular interpreter Daniel Falcone (here) for permission to talk to me. I try to be careful, as a blinguist, to select assistants whose last names have the right imperial connotations for our indispensable role in the indispensable nation. At least I think it was him… Maybe John Halle? Or David Barsamian? We globetrotting professors are very busy as you know, going from campus to campus on paid engagements to preach to the converted. So many people are still so retro: they actually believe in organizing, talking about institutions, things like parties and unions… They don’t understand: today it’s all about language, and movementist protests that have no institutional lasting power whatsoever. We live in a system of capitalist ephemera, and to interact with it we have to advocate for ephemeral forms of engagement. And most requests and essays as you know are really not even worth any response… But you obviously know your theory, your language, and your deferential modes of address, unlike those traitors from the Blinguistics Wars (but I will let you in on a secret or two about stacking academic departments with your followers: it is an indispensable tool for broadcasting the, universal, rationalist, truth): you understand the importance of that form of address “Professor”… and only a few people are already far enough advanced to understand the irrelevance of reality and the centrality of language…

Snarly Blanders: Professor, I greatly respect and admire your achievements, but you know there are some small pesky factions of primitive realists out there, some even among these young millions, and they are tying my use of “revolution” to its meaning in reality..!! I know it sounds absurd, and outrageously presumptuous of these followers to want to decide on their own, but could you help me set them on the blinguistic straight and narrow? Remember that was my request..?

Foam Stompsky: There are several secrets one needs to know so as to definitely move away from reality and fully into language. A couple come from my universally respected Transformational Generative Grammar. Language is transformative, and it allows the post-liberal class to continuously advance within the realm of language, leaving something as heavy, unwieldy, often obstinately impervious to manipulation as reality far behind us…! Only the primitive, materialist, troglodytes could ever believe meaning is what is essential to language, meaning created by the work of reference and cognition: we are light-years ahead of such prejudices, in the fully enlightened, rationalist (Cartesian Linguistics) computerized algorhythmic world ruled by grammar only: obey the rules!! Do as you are told!! Emotion, reference, meaning, cognition: all superannuated prejudices of the irrational, imprecise, unscientific masses. After transforming ourselves into an exclusively blinguistic and grammatical universe, we can generate an absolutely scientific, always identical, superimposed (or ‘stomped’ for short) universe where there is universal obedience to grammar, where natural languages have been definitely vanquished by machine languages, and where emotion, history, anthropology, neurophysiology, biology, cognitive sciences, all these inferior pseudo-sciences have been banned forever so we can move, “forever forward” in that magnificently vacuous, and yet imposing, in a positively totalitarian fashion, phrase you invented, into that space of the “lack of future” where all humans are perfectly mechanical, perfectly calculating, and never prey to emotion, principle, solidarity, attachment to reality and all those other primitive beliefs that prevent us from moving into the static timeless, futureless, freeze of perfect identity and equality between humans and machines. We need to stomp out all these primitive sentimental human qualities and move into a world where our political decisions, our linguistic camouflage, our financial predations, our enslaved dronedom are all perfectly calculated…

Snarly Blanders: I have always tried to learn from the masters in persuasion. I modeled my “lack of future to believe in” after Obama’s “hope you can believe in” (I am still paying Obama royalties for it). I understood how supremely he understood language replacing reality. He demonstrated that “talk the talk” rules. And I understood the key was limiting one’s own exposure, while encouraging the commitment others fall for: “believe in.” It is our followers duty to believe, and calculate according to grammatical rules as you point out… Content and reality are completely primitive, irrational, and of the past… as well as way beyond these masses’ pay grade. Their role is to contribute and vote the way we tell them to… I have heard some of your students also mention a “numb phase” and a “vile phase”… Could you explain those parts of your theory to me?

Foam Stompsky: Well I even developed a graphic representation for this transition to language, and the ensuing symptoms that accompany a withdrawal from reality. I use tree like structures to analyze the actual linguistic mechanisms controlling the illusion you believe exists, ‘reality.’ This is the same illusion that led so many old-fashioned, pre-scientific and pre-rationalist blinguists, to believe language was actually devised to convey and store meaning, to communicate… Can you imagine how childish..!!?? But now thanks to computerized, behavioral and mechanistic advances (which is really what emancipated reason is all about) we know that language is really concerned with going beyond reality, and obeying grammatical rules. I always admired those genealogical trees used by the aristocracy you know, so it was a natural to adopt them; and some of my critics have inadvertently even bolstered my aristocratic predilections: I do indeed love the Port-Royal grammarians (but, the cachet of Descartes, who can beat that?)…Unfortunately some biologists have used these trees for biological evolutionary relations also, but, biology is only a pseudo-science, so who cares. Reality is like a drug, you can get addicted to it… Instead language, especially as controlled by my grammatical theories is perfectly predictable, perfectly ordered and, above all, perfectly controllable… Well the Numb Phase (or NP) is that undergone by those withdrawing from reality and entering a phase of Total Linguistic Control (or TLC: we always emphasize our caring side to our new adepts…my students affectionately also call it COCC, or Clockwork Orange Control and Calculation). For a period they will feel “comfortably numb” and we provide encouragement to them in their comfort zone (some of the many on the loony left think otherwise, like Pink Floyd: but we have calculated the exact Walls to ease them into a comforting and comfortable, calculated space where the evils they experience will constantly lessen, until they disappear in the frozen immobility of the mechanical perfection of the “lack of future” space). Once they have completed withdrawal from reality, they enter what I have designated the Vile (Vanguard Intellectuals Lead Education) Phase (or VP), which is the phase in which they can once again become active (my students also affectionately call this the UP, or Undoing Psyche, phase). Their activity is now almost exclusively confined to language and we help induce and indoctrinate them into the true world of language significance, where meaning is generated purely by grammar, and purely within language. So “revolution” is what we decide it to mean, along with the most advanced blinguistic grammarians on Madison Ave for instance. The same goes for “believe” or “lack of future”…

Snarly Blanders: Can this help me with my predicament, not to say predication, regarding “revolution” and my followers?

Foam Stompsky: We are now working on new very advanced phrases like “Lesser Evil Voting” (LEV for short), as well as an even more daring lexical transformation, which we can positively, constructively, and calculatingly call “Strategic Voting” (SV). You see as a Professor at the Maximum Institute for Truth, which receives massive doses of funding from the Pentagon, we understand a lot about computers, artificial intelligence, mechanization and, of course, strategy. So sort of like the Strategic Syntax Defense Initiative (SSDI), Strategic Voting, allows us to defend against (attack) the Evil Empire of the Republican Party in so-called swing states (one of the great benefits of the language only universe is that there is no limit to the quantities of fear you can induce within a duopolistic system). Voting strategically fits in perfectly with my view of language as calculated algorhythmic grammatical rules. No emotion, no meaning, no reality, just calculations about percentages and which side of the duopoly wins. Some think the oligarchy wins whichever side wins, which, of course, is the point in the grander scheme of things. But on a more focused, linguistic, level the Damnocratic Party has understood the essential point: namely that we are transitioning out of reality into a realm of language only, and for that very reason they are to be preferred. See morality, principle, reality, etc. these are all primitive: they are for the weak, the deluded, the emotional. Since we don’t advocate for meanings and values, we don’t advocate for Wall St. (we just erect comforting Walls for those in the Numb Phase). We just adopt their rules, their procedures, their views on (the elimination of) human nature, body, all this primitive, philosophically materialist nonsense. Once they have entered the Vile Phase our adepts are active once again, completely receptive to our Total Linguistic Control, and completely incapable of using reality referentially, of making any comparisons between reality and language. They are now completely advanced, and completely immersed in language only, perfectly tuned grammatical machines.

Snarly Blanders: Very lucid as usual Professor Stompsky. I am hearing from some of my followers that two members of the loony left, and editors of an online magazine, which published essays from a great variety of points of view on my campaign, as well as on Brexit for instance, but are still very backwards in their attachment to reality, have actually proposed an alternate voting strategy, the Unsafe State Strategy (here) and (here). The name alone makes me worry, but from what I have been told it also seems to have a utilitarian basis.

Foam Stompsky: Well Snarly, yes I heard reports along the same lines. But you know, mostly these essays and proposals (here) are really not worthy of my time and consideration, let alone replies: my minions handle those trivial tasks (here). But let me emphasize a couple of points. Yes, the proposal may also be utilitarian, in that it would force the Damnocratic Party to perhaps bargain with those of the realist and principled left. But you know, there is calculation and calculation. And these primitive attachments to old ways, to reality, bring in so much complexity, so much reality, that calculation(s) become very difficult, ambiguous and problematic even. We need to have as pure and clean a calculation as possible: what’s better than a binary, for us who really understand the virtues of computers, artificial intelligence, mechanics, the lack of material human elements. That kind of calculation is so much simpler, Manichean even, and as with my language theories, allows for so much more control. Three or more parties inevitably drag us back towards the primitive, towards reality. We need to advance towards the shining rationality of the simply calculable, and calculating. How could we calculate which evil is truly “lesser” if we allowed for more than 2 parties in the equation? Calculations could get out of hand… You know some people think I might be contradicting myself when one of my principle accusations against Trump is that he denies global warming, and yet I don’t want to give the Greens who are the environmental party a chance except in a very calculated and ‘safe’ way… But as I have told you all along, we must move towards language and away from primitive, uncouth, reality. And in a universe of language divorced from reality we reach a fantastic plateau, where we have advanced way beyond the problems of (self)contradiction. So in the universe of language let us acknowledge that the global warming towards our unipolar Damnocratic candidate, Shillary of the gens Klintoniana, by now an indispensable, dynastic, presence in the Empire’s political scene (in fact another wonderful, lucid, duopolistic pairing with the dynasty of the Bushes, who have their own dynastic trees, oh how I love those trees, going back to Prescott, Wall St. and the Reich that precedes ours, the III) is another positive, constructive, element: it simplifies calculations immensely and makes for an apparently very logical utilitarian case. It shows global warming can have a positive side…which we don’t deny like that fool Trump, but instead fully embrace and affirm. Also it avoids those realistic, disruptive, elements, typical of the phrase ‘foreign policy’ you brought up. You know, the fewer alien(ating) elements the better… I mean you know some of these same loony tunes bring up the name Carter Page…!! Who’s ever heard of him? And what a name is that anyway: a last name that could be from a book, or an inferior position in an aristocratic hierarchy (almost as inferior as those pesky adjuncts who have swarmed and numerically overwhelmed our Korporativersities, making it so difficult for us to practice what we preach about for far away lands and circumstances), and a first name that reminds us of a president who also believed in this irritating, alienating element, ‘foreign policy’…

Snarly Blanders: How do you think I could make my linguistic case even more positive, appealing and constructive to my millions of retro followers, with these Oedipal attachments to reality?

Foam Stompsky: Well you know Snarly, I think you have to be positive, sound self-assured and commanding. For instance for your second slogan, instead of saying “a lack of future we can believe in,” I would try something more imperative, like “A Lack of Future You Must Believe In: There Is No Alternative,” you know perhaps accompanied by a graphic on the line of “Uncle Sam Wants You!” The linguistic, advanced, side of the duopoly will appreciate your efforts immensely, believe me!! And you know you will now have contributed to real progress towards a space of pure language!

Snarly Blanders: Professor Stompsky, so many people tell me about your vast political experience, your many books, the decades of activity, … I know at times you have defined yourself as an anarchist, at others as a council communist, at others yet as a democratic socialist. Are these important distinctions as we move away from reality and towards pure language and the rule of grammar?

Foam Stompsky: Yes, I have been around, and you are right, I did use various terms at various times. But you see that’s the beauty of language and moving beyond self-contradiction: the distinctions blur, and eventually vanish, and that also is a great advance in simplifying our calculations. You know there is an immense difference between planning and calculating. If you are still a very primitive being, attached to reality, then you still believe in institutions, the specifics of people in them, the differences that different political plans, world-views, even ‘ideologies’ (ha ha: isn’t that a funny term from the antediluvian past…:)) ) have when organizing in and for reality. But once you wean yourself from reality, and move towards language, everything becomes crystal clear, mechanically logical: so all we require then is the Vile phase, renewed activity, activism which could be anything from running on a stationary bike, to stomping the pavement with a placard in theatrical mode. All ephemeral modes of activity that generate energy, interact with the system, but don’t create any complications similar to those in reality, which would immensely complicate or even throw off calculations entirely, voiding the beauty and control of the eternal laws of grammar: which can be summed up very simply: the Subjects need to produce Objects! (The corollary being that the Vanguard Intellectuals will teach the only Orthodox Verb with which to interpret this simple command).

Snarly Blanders: Very concise indeed! But are there any reasons many humans would still feel so attached to reality?

Foam Stompsky: Well you see real intellectuals, who have pursued decades of blinguistic research, gradually learn that reality is only the Surface Structure. It is language, and especially grammatical rules, that allow you to penetrate the arcana of the Deep Structure. Many of my students studied some world-famous linguistic examples of mine: “colorless oligarchical politicians shilling endlessly” and “colorless corporate/academic drones bloviating furiously” (note: I omitted “green” because it is no longer a grammatical option; only a financial one). Now you see in the world of reality, Surface Structure, these would appear to be quite different sentences… But once you arrive at the level of Deep Structure, you move to the realm of pure language only, and therefore beyond any contradictions: and we can show that at the level of the Deep Structure the two sentences are harmoniously identical: no contradictions, moving seamlessly and in unison to generate a linguistic universe of complete harmony, way beyond the class-struggle, where unipolarity and monopoly are fully realized, and everyone can live (or die: mostly the latter, but in terms of calculation it is just a question of switching a + to a -…: the numbers remain the same). So you see how much happier everyone is in the Deep Structure? And as utilitarians isn’t our mission to pursue the greatest happiness of the greatest number? And don’t they say that the only real happiness lies in death, you know “rest in peace” and all that… You probably know I have always been a committed pacifist, and that is another reason to move beyond reality and those irritating, annoying details of things like ‘foreign policy’… In language and its blinguistic understanding we finally achieve complete pacification!

Snarly Blanders: So finally in the purely linguistic universe, we will reach democracy?

Foam Stompsky: Well you know, just as I did for language, many decades ago I postulated the existence of a Democracy Acquisition Device. I could see it clearly fit into my rationalist picture, almost Platonic in its aristocratic refinement: its clarity was never sullied by any questions from biology, political science, sociology, cognitive science, neurophysiology, all these lesser, primitive, sciences. In its mathematical purity the Democracy Acquisition Device makes all political calculations much simpler, cleaner, crystal clear, almost Manichean in fact. All human beings are endowed with the Democracy Acquisition Device, it’s just latent, and needs to be activated. And ultimately it takes an agent like the Indispensable Empire to be able to activate it globally. And the global diffusion of Lesser Evil Voting (LEV) or, even better, Strategic Voting (SV) will greatly help in its activation. Since this activation is especially strong if properly performed in the exclusive linguistic sphere, if the principle agent of its diffusion is the Damnocratic Party the results are superior. Yes I know linguistically there is this slight variation from “Democracy”, but that is just graphic, you know the trivialities of spelling: they sound alike and are really populistically uplifting. This way our calculations are simplified even more, and we finally arrive at the most perfect frozen state of the unipolar world, where the crystal clear logic of universal grammar and calculation reigns supreme. And having already achieved comfortable numbness our adepts in the Vile phase can now actively enjoy the pinnacles of Acquisition of Democracy. So ultimately at this unipolar level we could even positively call it Greater Good Voting (GGV). Because it is indeed so much greater. Only the oligarchy which sponsors the reporter who is recording this exchange actually enjoys the Greater Good, but the rest of the world does get to enjoy the Voting, and that is a good third of the phrase: so you see from a utilitarian point of view there is net gain compared to the unpredictability and complexity of reality: we are helping the 99% be active in Voting and in realizing something, in the exclusive domain of language purity: nothing to sneeze at in the incredibly advanced and progressive space of universal grammar and a lack of future.

Snarly Blanders: This exchange and conversation has been so enlightening. I truly feel ready for some activity. I now completely understand your global reputation. Truly this has been a linguistic revolution in my understanding of the relationship between language, politics and reality. Any final thoughts?

Foam Stompsky: Well I want to once again underscore I am a rationalist. Just because I advocate moving into the realm of pure language ruled by universal grammar, doesn’t mean I belong with other movements that have weaned themselves from material reality. Most of the French postmodern philosophical neologisms only schools (Fashionable Nonsense) have also moved into the realm of pure language. But you see they are irrationalist, non-Cartesian, and certainly not aristocratically commanding: Port(of-arrival)-Royal. So while I feel a great affinity for them as they also belong in the language only universe (and they are also French, really fashionable, aliens), and are completely beyond materialism, they are irrationalists. Also you know, between you and me, we have to keep our marketing strategies separate.

Finally I am told that you also revolutionized your name. Once upon a time your initials had been BS, somewhat vulgar, rather banal in their alphabetical sequencing. But now, your new name, Snarly Blanders, that truly revolutionizes your initials. I find you very smart and congenial, so my home institution, the Maximum Institution of Truth, has authorized me to extend you a New Deal: we have an opening in our Special Bloviation Department. With your initials you would fit just perfectly. What do you think? The School of Blinguistics would certainly be greatly enriched by your presence. And don’t worry about qualifications: eminent individuals like Tony Blair, who have devotedly served the cause of an exclusively linguistic universe (and their own), and was given a position at the Yale Divinity School, are a shining precedent in this regard…

Well dear readers, at this point some urgent bodily functions requested my momentary absence, so I was not privy to Snarly Blanders’ decision. But, what a privilege, don’t you think!!??? To be able to report on these stellar exchanges of two of the greatest luminaries of our intellectual and political firmament, post-democratic, post-liberal, loyal coadiuvators of the neoliberal ‘extreme center’, a term I rarely use, because devised by another one of those primitive realists, Tariq Ali, but in the interests of identity and diversity, pure tolerance, and the power of linguistic assimilation, I will let it creep in… To listen in on an exchange at the highest level! Via the international SWIFT system! In Boston, where it all started! The privilege of Northern exposure! Where the Blanders speak only to the Stompskys and the Stompskys speak only to God, or … wait a minute, maybe only to cod? In any case, if you don’t like tea, too Chinese (problems for universal grammar you know), we offer all subscribers a surfeit of lampreys to go with the cod. That way you can chowder down so as not to clam up. After consulting those superlative grammarians on Madison Ave, we’ve called this offer “suckers for suckers.” Don’t let it slip, or perhaps slither, away! Don’t believe those realist skeptics who claim this is all very fishy! Yes, on the surface it appears to be a sermo piscatorius, but it’s actually quite militant, a sermo mercenarius in fact… A smell you say? In the language only universe there are no smells…!

This was truly a revolutionary moment all of us here with the Unipolar Oligarchical Observer should be proud to partake of.

Source: CounterPunch.

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