Thursday, January 15, 2015

Voltaire misattributions

Voltaire was quoted often in the past week: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." But Voltaire never said that, as can be read in the "misattributed" section of the Wikiquote page on Voltaire.

Still, at least the quotation is from one person's attempt to sum up Voltaire's position on free speech. The same cannot be said of another Voltaire attribution that just crossed my path: "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." This turns out to be a quotation from an American white supremacist named Kevin Strom (see the Wikiquote page again).

Voltaire did actually say a few things. Here's one of them (found by skimming that Wikiquote page): "Un bon mot ne prouve rien." Or as that page translates it, "A witty saying proves nothing."

Charlie Hebdo and the State Monopoly on Violence

A hypothesis for discussion:

Charlie Hebdo is not about freedom of speech. It’s about the state monopoly on violence: “the right to use physical force is ascribed to other institutions or to individuals only to the extent to which the state permits it” (Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation”). The caricaturists’ “freedom of speech” protects them from state suppression or punishment of their speech as speech. Because they were offended by what the Charlie Hebdo caricaturists drew, the murderers claimed the state’s “right to use physical force” as their own. Such vigilante justice is what should be condemned here; no defense of “freedom of speech” is necessary (or even appropriate?).

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Erasing "Bringing It All Back Home"

It's the 50th anniversary of recording of Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home. I listened to the whole album this morning while working out, looking for something to write about it. I found myself overwhelmed by how many individual lines and images would be worthy of lengthy posts. So instead of writing a blog post, I have done an erasure of the lyrics.

-->
        homesick   it
It’s          it      alley
              away
       back, write
              hit
       it all took  back
                      back
       take          fall
                      fall
                      all
       Halloween
It’s          with
It            all
                      Limit
Without    faithful     situations   wall  all
        all    bring              with
       it
       it
Especially  it’s
        it
       really
It            take
       all    away
              call it
              hit
       took
Writing                   with
              all    editor
       waitress     kitchen
       without
       all    back alley
       invited
With               front
       it
       all    with
       Call
       ball
It     it
       bringin’ back
       either
Back               back suit
It
It             with
       it back
              back  took
              it      away
              all
Take
Wait                      it
It’s                  it’s
                      it’s
              it
It’s   take
With all
Its
With        lit 
       its
All           with
Its    it
All    all    fall
With with
With
Sits with     hermit
All    wait  with
It            it      totally
With ditch
It's                  balloon
                      with
       waterfalls pity
It’s                         downfall
                      small        call
       all           nothing      all
It’s          without
              really        waits
                      its
It’s    it’s                        it
All                  nothing
              with         really
                             lit
                             fit
                             quit
       it
        it                          it
       nothing
Nothing                          criticize
        nothing            with
        it’s
Limited                    it
Obscenity  really
              all
With                      security
It                    bitterly
        fall         naturally
                       it
        it’s          it’s
It's All                    take
                                     it
                             with
        it’s all
Take         it’s all
All                                 home
All                          all    home
        taken all
        it’s all                            calls
       it’s all