I've just finished reading a book which discusses the history of western philosophy. The only thing which really struck me as insightful was where the author describes modern (and 'post-modern') philosophy as being like an obsessive-compulsive sitting on the side of their bed, tying and re-tying their shoes, while people like Socrates are off enjoying their hike already. Socrates - he understood things. Things like the fact that no person ever makes a bad decision. That's something you can think about and learn from.

Then you get to the modern and 'post-modern' types, and (if you're me, at least,) all you can do is shake your head. I have put the book away now, but it's tempting to go get it and quote passages... just the language of someone discussing it is freakish. These are people with no bloody idea. The history of philosophy is a process whereby philosophers have evolved along a different line to real people. They have their own little world now, and they seem unable to see how hopelessly irrelevant they are, or how nobody really cares how hard time they have dealing with reality. (They make me think of Douglas Adams and God "promptly vanishing in a puff of logic", but I imagine the modern philosopher disappearing into his own navel.) They're kind of saying they have no idea, and I imagine they don't feel to good about being clueless, I go on to imagine that they use the language they do in some kind of attempt to compensate for feeling stupid.

Like - 'post-modern'. Modern is 'now', so if you're a post-modernist your head's up your arse. In my view, at any rate.

I met my respite person last week. He's one of those people that I think of as a composite of other people I have known. Overall he seems nice enough, but I think that if I met him in the wild I'd put him in the post-modernist basket. One of his starts at conversation involved checking out the philosophy book and asking me how it was. And I explained my thoughts about people with no idea about life. Then he went on about some modern french philosopher he's keen on, and that chat died a quick death.

[Music: Ministry - Burning Inside]