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Re: Fw:Reading Lolita in...
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On 1/11/06 15:12, "jansymello" <jansy@AETERN.US> wrote:
> Dear List participants,
>
> Recent postings on Pale Fire seem to favor arguments towards reaching a "true
> solution" to VN's enigmas and not on how to enrich with amazing and amusing
> new finds the already very rich bibliography on the subject.
> Satisfied desires are dead desires, the same can be said about "true
> solutions" ( fortunately these are impossible to reach in connection to VN's
> works).
> This brings me to the rather perplexing news I got from my internet opening
> page ("Terra News") under the heading " The American Government suggests
> virginity until the age of 30" ( in my imprecise translation).
> I immediately thought about Pale Fire ( quite safe ), "Ada" and envisioned a
> book with a title like "Reading Lolita in Washington,DC" ...
>
> Jansy: a sea shanty in my repertoire says: ³The best of intentions, they
> never go far/ After forty-two days on the floor of a bar.²
>
> No doubt the US Gvt Health Dept means well -- luckily it¹s ADVICE and would
> require MAJOR constitutional reform to ever become the LAW ;=) Enforceability
> would be a problem, and PROOF a nightmare of PRIVACY [sic] invasion (e.g.,
> there is much Rabbinical objection to the notion that a VIRGIN birth * could
> ever serve as any kind of SIGN, least of all a Messianic SIGN surely yet
> another pagan Helenistic instrusion into Christianity? **) in some extant
> cultures, stoning & public decapitation have proved to be insufficient
> deterrents to wayward shagging. In my horrid Scouse juris-imprudence, a
> virgin is defined as any ugly girl under the age of ten.
>
> * Isiah¹s Hebrew has ³... a young lady/maiden shall conceive ... ³ which
> became ³ ... a virgin shall conceive ....² in the Greek Septuagint this
> earns a dangerously LOW TQ (Translation Quotient)!
>
> ** I¹m with with John Shade (and plausibly with VN) ³My God died young.
> Theolatry I found/ Degrading, and its premises, unsound./ NO FREE MAN NEDS A
> GOD; BUT WAS I FREE? [PF ll 99-101] Kinbote ³ ... is bound to question the
> wisdom of this easy aphorism. Does this fact vitiate the JS/CK unitfication
> hypothesis? A sane atheist (or maybe agnostic¹?) poet vs a deranged Deist
> (Defender of the Faith!) commentator?
>
> YET, wearing my Cambridge logician¹s hat (not RED but a woolly BLUE), I spot a
> POTENTIAL flaw in Shade¹s reasoning, triggered by the phrase UNSOUND premise¹
> with its syllogistic implications.
>
> Assume TRUE: NO FREE MAN NEEDS A GOD therefore the set MG (all men needing a
> God) and the set FM (all free men) are DISJOINT.
>
> WAS JS A FREE MAN? If YES, JS belongs to FM and cannot belong to MG., i.e.,
> JS does NOT need a God. End of Theolatry.
>
> If JS NOT-FREE, as the rhetoric suggests (why else would he pose the
> question?), JS belongs to the complement of FM, AND we CANNOT deduce whether
> JS belongs to MG or NOT. You can draw a Venn (VN might prefer a Vann)
> diagram. JS thinks he has proved from NO FREE MAN NEEDS A GOD that ALL
> NOT-FREE MEN DO NOT NEED A GOD. In fact the complement of FM can contain
> members of MG, and the complement of MG can contain members of FM. Perhaps
> that¹s why VN provides the CLUE: Unsound premises. One might add an ancient
> logician¹s quip: JS and CK can never agree because, being neighbours, they
> are arguing from DIFFERENT PREMISES!
>
> Stan Kelly-Bootle
>
>
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> Dear List participants,
>
> Recent postings on Pale Fire seem to favor arguments towards reaching a "true
> solution" to VN's enigmas and not on how to enrich with amazing and amusing
> new finds the already very rich bibliography on the subject.
> Satisfied desires are dead desires, the same can be said about "true
> solutions" ( fortunately these are impossible to reach in connection to VN's
> works).
> This brings me to the rather perplexing news I got from my internet opening
> page ("Terra News") under the heading " The American Government suggests
> virginity until the age of 30" ( in my imprecise translation).
> I immediately thought about Pale Fire ( quite safe ), "Ada" and envisioned a
> book with a title like "Reading Lolita in Washington,DC" ...
>
> Jansy: a sea shanty in my repertoire says: ³The best of intentions, they
> never go far/ After forty-two days on the floor of a bar.²
>
> No doubt the US Gvt Health Dept means well -- luckily it¹s ADVICE and would
> require MAJOR constitutional reform to ever become the LAW ;=) Enforceability
> would be a problem, and PROOF a nightmare of PRIVACY [sic] invasion (e.g.,
> there is much Rabbinical objection to the notion that a VIRGIN birth * could
> ever serve as any kind of SIGN, least of all a Messianic SIGN surely yet
> another pagan Helenistic instrusion into Christianity? **) in some extant
> cultures, stoning & public decapitation have proved to be insufficient
> deterrents to wayward shagging. In my horrid Scouse juris-imprudence, a
> virgin is defined as any ugly girl under the age of ten.
>
> * Isiah¹s Hebrew has ³... a young lady/maiden shall conceive ... ³ which
> became ³ ... a virgin shall conceive ....² in the Greek Septuagint this
> earns a dangerously LOW TQ (Translation Quotient)!
>
> ** I¹m with with John Shade (and plausibly with VN) ³My God died young.
> Theolatry I found/ Degrading, and its premises, unsound./ NO FREE MAN NEDS A
> GOD; BUT WAS I FREE? [PF ll 99-101] Kinbote ³ ... is bound to question the
> wisdom of this easy aphorism. Does this fact vitiate the JS/CK unitfication
> hypothesis? A sane atheist (or maybe agnostic¹?) poet vs a deranged Deist
> (Defender of the Faith!) commentator?
>
> YET, wearing my Cambridge logician¹s hat (not RED but a woolly BLUE), I spot a
> POTENTIAL flaw in Shade¹s reasoning, triggered by the phrase UNSOUND premise¹
> with its syllogistic implications.
>
> Assume TRUE: NO FREE MAN NEEDS A GOD therefore the set MG (all men needing a
> God) and the set FM (all free men) are DISJOINT.
>
> WAS JS A FREE MAN? If YES, JS belongs to FM and cannot belong to MG., i.e.,
> JS does NOT need a God. End of Theolatry.
>
> If JS NOT-FREE, as the rhetoric suggests (why else would he pose the
> question?), JS belongs to the complement of FM, AND we CANNOT deduce whether
> JS belongs to MG or NOT. You can draw a Venn (VN might prefer a Vann)
> diagram. JS thinks he has proved from NO FREE MAN NEEDS A GOD that ALL
> NOT-FREE MEN DO NOT NEED A GOD. In fact the complement of FM can contain
> members of MG, and the complement of MG can contain members of FM. Perhaps
> that¹s why VN provides the CLUE: Unsound premises. One might add an ancient
> logician¹s quip: JS and CK can never agree because, being neighbours, they
> are arguing from DIFFERENT PREMISES!
>
> Stan Kelly-Bootle
>
>
Search the archive: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/archives/nabokv-l.html
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm