As one who becoming decidedly old, who having thrown myself into all sorts of experiences, has learned several things, I will state that there are two types of people in the world. An aging person's well-being and entire happiness in life depend on knowing the difference between the two.
There is a difficulty here that may not be underestimated. Just about everybody and his caterpillar wants to be considered a debonair male or lady of the world. Some will represent themselves as very tough minded individuals, easy to get along with, ready to roll with the punches. They even want to be your friend or good acquaintance, to show you that they're worthwhile individuals. Only, it turns out they're looking for a platform to preach their message of how I ought to be a better, more moral, more sensitive lady than I already am. I'm not the right kind of lady for them. I'm not a man's lady, with very considerate lady-ways. I'm too much myself, my own lady's lady -- and, now, I ought to stop it!
Nietzsche refers to a concept of the "ascetic priest". This is a fine fellow who only wants what's best for me. He may be a secularist or libertarian who knows what's best. More often, he's a guy who's got religion real bad. Sometimes this "religion" is secularism. It might be Nietzscheanism (turning Nietzsche into a dogma, particularly his anti-feminism). "Rationalism" that doesn't take into account humanity's irrational roots, but demands that every human being must suddenly behave as if the world has suddenly sprung out of Data's hip-bone, is also party to a ludicrous miss-step. These are of the ascetic priest cast, condemning whatsoever they don't understand with a hoity-toity swagger.
Clumsy, they may be. But all too often they get through the defences of naive and good-humoured people. Before I learned to recognise the type, I considered such individuals too harmless and too intellectually uninteresting to be intent on laying down the law to "a feminist". Repeat experiences have taught me how it was not possible to be more wrong.
The calling card of ascetic-priestly piety is always and forever the inability to recognise written or verbal irony. Over and over, they trip over this last step of the staircase. They may be brain-damaged, but this is not going to stop them from trying again. (Quite to the contrary, my dear lady!)
I learned this lesson: the ascetic priest is hostile, to his dry old bones, to ladies' ironic flair.
There is a difficulty here that may not be underestimated. Just about everybody and his caterpillar wants to be considered a debonair male or lady of the world. Some will represent themselves as very tough minded individuals, easy to get along with, ready to roll with the punches. They even want to be your friend or good acquaintance, to show you that they're worthwhile individuals. Only, it turns out they're looking for a platform to preach their message of how I ought to be a better, more moral, more sensitive lady than I already am. I'm not the right kind of lady for them. I'm not a man's lady, with very considerate lady-ways. I'm too much myself, my own lady's lady -- and, now, I ought to stop it!
Nietzsche refers to a concept of the "ascetic priest". This is a fine fellow who only wants what's best for me. He may be a secularist or libertarian who knows what's best. More often, he's a guy who's got religion real bad. Sometimes this "religion" is secularism. It might be Nietzscheanism (turning Nietzsche into a dogma, particularly his anti-feminism). "Rationalism" that doesn't take into account humanity's irrational roots, but demands that every human being must suddenly behave as if the world has suddenly sprung out of Data's hip-bone, is also party to a ludicrous miss-step. These are of the ascetic priest cast, condemning whatsoever they don't understand with a hoity-toity swagger.
Clumsy, they may be. But all too often they get through the defences of naive and good-humoured people. Before I learned to recognise the type, I considered such individuals too harmless and too intellectually uninteresting to be intent on laying down the law to "a feminist". Repeat experiences have taught me how it was not possible to be more wrong.
The calling card of ascetic-priestly piety is always and forever the inability to recognise written or verbal irony. Over and over, they trip over this last step of the staircase. They may be brain-damaged, but this is not going to stop them from trying again. (Quite to the contrary, my dear lady!)
I learned this lesson: the ascetic priest is hostile, to his dry old bones, to ladies' ironic flair.
No comments:
Post a Comment