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advertising, untrue nonlies, and an ittybitty hoax
Daniel A. Foss (DFOSS@CCVM.SUNYSB.EDU)
Tue, 2 Aug 1994 22:21:18 EDT
found you, plural, nitpicking over commercials on the list. Which proves, at
the very least, that there has, statistically [= douglass st. christian, lower
case in the original, a notable exception], been inadequate exposure to the
Progressive Sociologists Network: Once I actually told them, "What I really
love about this [ie, PSN] list is the commercials. It's those commercials that
make it so distinctive."
Every author of a new book, invariably, it seems, published by either
Greenwood Press, wholly owned subsidiary of Praeger Books, or Westview Press,
ditto, or textbook will without exception include in the .sig file, eg, "Ted
Goertzel/Author Of:/Turncoats and True Believers/Westview Press/[blah]." Absent
one's own book to publicize, backscratching of the following type occurs:
>convert) when I read Al Szymanski (from whom I took many sociology
>courses) and Ted Goertzel's book *Sociology: Class, Consciousness,
>Contradiction* (did I get the title right, Ted?) and ever since then I've
This in response to a query anent books on Social Movements. Never have I
pushed Foss&Larkin, 1986 [So Hadley MA: Bergin & Garvey, then a wholly owned
subsidiary of Greenwood Press, subsequently absorbed into parent subsidiary
for accounting simplification]. Because, in my opinion, that book stank, was
garbage.
The late, but ungreat, Al Szymanski himself published *three* hardcore-
dogmatic Marxist-Leninist volumes with Praeger Books. [I cannot be the one to
explain who Praeger Books is, which any child of twelve can; it gets me called
Paranoid. Nor guess why Whoever wanted to subsidize the Marxist Theory
industry. Ditto.]
Greenwood's author-remuneration practices are of no concern to Foss, who's
irked by keeping track of small sums, but incense Larkin, whose concern is, the
sums are small; the latter now grosses in six figures in the private sector.
Pecuniary motives are hence exiguous, I presume, to the authors' PSN commer-
cials. Career development, glory, American Sociological Association office-
mongering, vanity, and even erroneous-misguided-outright Liberal-in-sheep's-
clothing Theory, as charged (vs politically irrelevant, obsolete-by-verdict-
of-history The as countercharged) is also, if inextricably, involved along
with the preceding: Alan J. Spector <SPECTOAJ%PUCAL.BITNET@UICVM.UIC.EDU>,
incessant critic of Goertzel's milquetoast sellout-liberalism, "I guess I'm
more Orthodox than most," pushes his own co-authored textbook to undo damage
by foe, whose name, as in Brand X, he omits, preferring "**** RADIO STAR ****,"
allusion to Goertzel's uniqueness as a Marxist talk show host.
Do we have here a Serious qualitative difference between high-octane ego-
tripping and profit-motive? Or perhaps something genetic, speciation of two
populations too long separated, eg by swinging double doors (Brandeis Univ),
the length of the long corridor of the Seventh Floor (Rutgers-NCAS), one whole
flight of stairs (SUNY Stony Brook)? Whateveritis, it doesn't belong on either
this list or the other one, which cannot possibly matter enough to discern
which one it is, so stop, already, whydontcha.
This would've been said yesterday, except for failure to listen to my
Spiritual Master, The Dead Sociologist:
"Truth-fetishism is confined almost exclusively to the Retarded and those
so Paranoid, due to irremediable gullibility, as to fear they'll believe
anything....
"Lying is among the highest-order social skills, where as 'tact' and among
elites as 'diplomacy' denotes the exquisite social competence that is found in
purest form in the best, or at least the oldest, universities....
"Obloquy is most reserved for those known not as liars but as Divisive, this
word euphemizing the Commoners' usage, *asshole*." - [from The Sociological
Book Of The Dead.]
On the other side, the pamphlet Rules Of Engagement in Crazy-Paranoid
Relations, distributed during Paranoid Pride Week, contains the following:
n-k+1: Nobody levels with Crazy People. They're humored. There's No Telling
What You Are Likely To Do, hence the Normal will never assume the Terrible
Responsibility of furnishing you with facts; and such as you already possess
are eo ipso subject to plausible deniablity.
n-k+2: Never exclude the possibility of Anticipatory Monitoring, but at all
times deny any belief in its deployment.
n-k+3: The Normals monopolize the right to define what you are Doing.
n-k+4: By convention, the Crazy is incapable of asymptomatic behavior.
n-k+5: By like convention, the Crazy is incapable of nonDeviant intent.
n-k+6: The condition of Crazy is prior to Delusions or Hallucinations, which
when necessary may readily be found; in the worst case situation, the Normals
or enforcers acting in their name will fall back on your insistence that there
is nothing wrong with you, so never say it. By the same token, it is self-
discrediting and socially obliterating to be compelled to be aware of these
rules, which Normals have no need to know about.
n-k+7: The difference between Delusion or not may be acceptable usage, eg,
"People are trying to *manage* me" not "*push* me *around*." Similarly, you
have been "exposed to highly effective advertising" emanating from "the
sponsor." Never a "someone." Absolutely do not ever personalize; it comes out:
"Someone is broadcasting thoughts through the air that just won't stop." Be
at all times vigilant for subtle usage rules; obey them all; never let on what
you are doing. Too much of the truth is more damaging than Obvious delusions
(by definition), since in medical parlance, "a delusion is a belief which is
/obviously/self-evidently untrue." If you don't know how to lie, hire a liar.
n-k+8: It is not Known at this time what constitutes a Normal, as it is not,
as noted above, absence of delusions or hallucinations.
What the foregoing *fictitious* (of course) citations are suggesting is,
there are certain persons who are acculturation-impaired. However this might
happen, think of such an organism as the opposite-of-anthropologist, attempting
to take evasive or remedial action, doing the latter incorrectly due to the
acculturation-impairment which obscures disguising acculturation-impairment,
and notwithstanding whatever [stressful] *vigilance* can be mustered, is long
habituated to getting Caught, the specific offense to be filled in.
The anthropologist, at one tail of the distribution, does not imagine the
opposite-of-the-anthropologist at the other end. Consider the fictitious Rules
of Engagement, above: The first "rule" suggests that the acculturation-
impaired, who is the sociological Crazy meant above (vis a vis Insane, a legal
category, and Psychotic, a medical one), has an altogether-excessive need (by
Normals' standards) for, or makes egregious - to Normals - demands for accurate
and detailed information as to what is Normative. (Normals will a priori assume
this goes without saying, and for Normals they are quite correct). Or, even
more basic, *what one is*. To the acculturation-impaired, the acceptance,
readily absorbed by Normals, of *what one is* in terms of What Them Pays You
For (in response to "what do you do"); and the grasping, unproblematic to
Normals, of *what is really as opposed to nominally going on* requires vast
amounts of critically importand, difficult to obtain, and dubious as to
accuracy given paucity of the most commonplace source of information, friends
on the spot. The data is so corrupted that the System Default must be *worst
case*, since complacency, the sense the everything's cool, is more likely to
get one In Trouble than the assumption that Everything Is Generally Speaking
Wrong.
To the Professional Social Scientist, it must seem bizarre, accordingly,
that an organism ostensibly credentialled in sociology should rely on e-mail
contacts in New Zealand to ascertain *what was really going on* and is still
*really going on* in Chicago, where tonight's broadcast originates via telnet,
but it is, alas, so. The discovery, consequently, of incompatible communication
between a *Professional To Professional* letter in the same e-mail pile with
other offline letter *** which by consequence of the unintended reading of the
former are Reframed as #Normal To Crazy# letters ***. Or Straight To Junkie
letters, or suchhoweverlike.
What I am telling the readers who have got this far, presumed a null set,
is that it is pointless to tell the readers, for excellent theoretical reasons,
what has been said. Nor can it be explained to Diane Bennett how she did not
commit an offense, yet induced considerable disorientation which is not in any
way her *Fault*. For any impressions elsewise, I'm sorry.
It is true, however, that I sent a post to Leri called "is lyndon larouche
a woman," wherein I described the street encounter with LaRouchians repeated
yesterday, a cc: copy sent to Diane Bennett. And that e-mail did pass between
Doctress Neutopia and Diane Bennett, I know not which way or why. Also, that
Diane Bennett is inter alia a student of or authority on e-mail/virtual/Cyber-
neologism&Cyberstupidity subcultures.
Now I'm going to do something really awful which I wouldn't do except that
I can't say it better than in this excerpt from an offline letter, wherein I
explained to the addressee what the hoax *which fooled practically everyone*
who read it, only one person having (offline) doubts. See text following
background material in brackets.
[If you do not know, and this may be difficult, Doctress Neutopia, the
former Elizabeth N. Hubbard, 289 Triangle St Amherst MA 01002, PhD U Mass
Amherst, author of Gaia, The Planetary Religion: The Sacred Marriage Of Art
And Science, PhD Diss, U Mass School of Education, Feb 1994, is a wellknown
Internet pest. She lives with her longtime husband, subsequently longtime
ex-husband, Charles, and one cat, at the above address, but the longtime couple
will part on September 1. (All efforts to extract an explanation for the rare,
excepting Eastern Europe under Communism, postmarital cohabitation, for years,
have been stonewalled.]
>..."advertising lies and an itty bitty hoax," poor lizzy having been blamed
>for it because she's notorious about invading other people's privacy
>(remember,
>she posted my loveletters, which I foregave because they were pretty lousy
>loveletters); I did her style to perfection; and it's all her own words, such
>as, "For I am the Goddess, my mighty womb gives birth to Neutopia," which I
>saw her type on the screen Sunday. But that's not the point. The story says
>the opposite of what it says, which is that she's the Normal.
See Rule n-k+8, above.
To Leri subscriber SOL <QSTP1_004@VAX2.LUTON.AC.UK>, let me say this for
both lizzy and myself. I fictionalized lizzy as an e-docudrama. She fells that
way about Leri although not even she would dare say it. I do not share whatever
feelings, stemming from bitter flamewars with the good citizens of "Leriland,"
should this term still be in use, *the pace of cultural change* as some call it
being what it is, that she may still harbor. Feelings, you understand, are, uh,
problematic for Doctress Neutopia and myself, and if you consider that either
or both of us do have feelings, though neither has any for the other and vice
versa, they would be unlike any feelings familiar to you in armenian-English-
Australian-Canadian-NewZealandish culture. Will explain another time.
To the gentleman I shall refrain from identifying, who told me to Go To
USENET! let me say, as I said to the strange creature who penetrated this
access-protected computer room last night at 2am, attempting to sell me
Christianity, I do not believe in any such afterlife, and have been accustomed
to suchlike revilement ever since, many years ago, I first was told by an
ANTHRO-L lynch party to Go To USENET where you belong!
I would, however, *imprecate YOU* to *Go To The Hottest Part Of The USENET
and stay there for all Eternity*! Except that, as you mentioned some Thingie,
"alt.sex.bondage," it would appear that you are already there. Doctress
Neutopia may be found in alt.neutopia, perhaps you would have to keep her
company, they lock her in for what she'd Done. Which was Nothing, and she was,
poor thing, Protestant. Elsewise, knowing naught of USENET, my Dante is nonex-
istent, I *believe* my soul will remain right here.
Daniel A. Foss
<search and destroy missions against spurious sense since 1991>
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