#they discovered Socratic irony

[aristoteliancomplacency]

Someone reblogged the Aristotle post again and I actually went and looked at some of the reblogs which I’d stopped paying attention to last time and one of them is someone saying that Aristotle and Plato are the most misunderstood philosophers of all time, even more so than Rand and I cannot even alfjahfkahfkahs.

And then the analysis is like… a fairly common analysis for super obvious reasons. I promise you most people understand Plato’s allegorical meaning. Like. Just Google it.

I Just. I… what? Whaaaaaaaat?

Oh, also, fuck Rand.

[unyandere]

Yandere bully x reader who uses Socratic irony

Tw: use of Socratic Irony, gaslighting (?), bulling (attempts), Yanderish tendencies (but like not soo strong), bad English

I don’t wanna explain briefly Socratic Irony, so, if you want to understand what it is, who used it (spoiler: Socrates), how it works and how it was applied,… I’ll leave it to you to discover.

And for more unyandered Yanderes look at the MASTERPOST

He awaited for you at the entrance of the school, trying to think of a new insult.

He already picked on you for being a loner, a nerd, a creepy library person who always read stupid ancient books or something like that,… He didn’t have any more adjectives or ways of describing your “bad” traits.

Maybe he should have gotten more physical and more prone to “use” you for his needs… He shook his head, it was too soon. For now he’d have fun teasing you until you finally lost your temper giving him a reason to put you against a locker, make you feel his breath on your throat and hit you until you were a crying mess just because of him and him alone, maybe after that you would do everything he says, you would become his daring partner, would stay at home and do everything for him and never see anyone else,… Not like you had any friend with which you could cheat on him.

He saw you approaching the school with your bag and books, you had… what was that book? The bully tried to see the title from afar but he couldn’t make out the words, he only saw the author. Plato.

“Hey, what’cha got there idiot?” He said, approaching you and taking the book from your hands.

“Now now, while I am definitely not an expert in Idiotology , while you might be, I am not convinced by your theory” you answered.

“My… theory?” He repeated, confused.

“That I am an idiot. I don’t believe I fit into the characteristics needed in a person to be an idiot” you explain.

“Why?” He asks.

“Would you describe what an idiot is to me?” You demand.

“You are an idiot, the other students are idiots, most teachers in this school are idiots,… is that enough?” He answers, a bit annoyed.

“I’m sorry I didn’t make a precise question, I mean, what are the characteristics needed in a idiot” you explain.

“Uuuuh… Being stupid-“ he starts saying

“But what does being stupid mean? Is knowing things what makes people not stupid or is being wise what differentiates a stupid from a normal person? Would you say I’m stupid? We should know more or less the same amount of things since we go to the same school and we are in the same year” you say interrupting him

“I… Uuuh… W-whatever nerd” he mumbles perplexed

“What’s a nerd in your opinion?” You ask

“I… A nerd is a loser” he answers trying to make you shut up

“What does being a loser mean? Is staying alone a loser thing?” You continue to question, making him pretty much desperate.

“Uuuh… yeah, being a loner is a total nerd thing” he answers.

“But being able to stand a life of loneliness isn’t a brave choice? After all ermits get praised for living alone… Being able to stay alone means that someone is enough for themselves, which means they love themselves and loving ourselves isn’t the first step into loving others?” You continue to ask

“…I mean, kinda?” He answers unconvincingly.

“So doesn’t it mean that nerd are the ones who love the most?” You continue to ask.

“I… I guess” he answers.

“But aren’t lovers the happiest people on earth?” You ask.

He thinks at himself in love with you.

“I suppose” he answers.

“And aren’t happy people winning in their life?” You ask.

“Yeah, duh” he answers.

“So… couldn’t we say that nerds are winners and we should all aspire to become nerds since nerds reach happiness?” You ask.

He nods convinced.

Then he stops, realising in what he agreed.

“Wait… what?”

[grandhotelabyss]

Given that postmodernism affirms pastiche and kitsch as opposed to the modernist (and romantic) values of singularity and exceptional or great works, is it possible to be a modernist in the contemporary era without unintentionally doing modernist pastiche that repudiates the very values modernist works are premised on? Maybe the better question is: Whats the point of doing a modernist pastiche in the first place? Whats the point of modernism without a modernist metanarrative?

I don't believe it's empowering for writers to make their artistic choices at this level of abstraction. But, as we are very self-conscious, let me try to dissolve the issue abstractly to set us free. "Postmodernism" came to be an important term and concept in the late 20th century only because what had been practiced and (yes!) already theorized for centuries in the "high art" tradition became much more broadly disseminated in pop culture and politics. Everything we associate with postmodernism, above all its metanarrative-dissolving irony, was already there in Romanticism. It was Romanticism that collapsed high and mass (i.e., folk) art, Romanticism that broke the boundaries of genre, and Romanticism that elevated metafiction (i.e., Romantic irony) to an ethical principle. This is all conceptualized in Schlegel's criticism and forms the background for Hegel's declaration that art had come to the end of its immanent possibilities and had given way to philosophy as the cultural modality meant to conceptualize the world. (He thought this precisely because he thought irony was the dead end at which art had arrived.) The Romantics, moreover, claimed to be discovering these principles in Shakespeare and in the early novel from Cervantes forward. What of postmodernism isn't there in Hamlet with its play-within-a-play and Don Quixote with its panoply of texts-within-texts? Even Dante and Chaucer back in the Middle Ages are strikingly meta. Nietzsche thought "postmodernism," not that he used the term, started with Socrates's rational attack on myth and Euripides's micropolitical dramas of female and slave revolt. Young pre-Marxist Lukács thought "postmodernism," not that he used the term, began with Cervantes; old Marxist Lukács thought it began with Flaubert. In any case, at some point, most thinkers agree, subject and object got permanently detached from one another, and the gap between them, otherwise known as irony, became the privileged topic of art. There never was a metanarrative, not one serious artists believed in anyway. Even The Odyssey keeps calling attention within the poem to the figure of the bard. The Romantic genius was the orchestrator of these external inspirations and the reflector upon them. All of these ideas are already present in modernism as they were in Romanticism. (Only the realists in between naively thought they could access reality directly, and yet, none of the major realists is actually so naive when read closely. Nobody knew more about postmodernism than George Eliot.) What could be more postmodern than the encyclopedic reliquary of dead styles known as Ulysses? "Postmodernism" only became the name of an epoch when these ideas and artistic practices fully penetrated mass-produced industrial culture about a century into its reign—until it showed up on or as TV. (And even to say this is probably to underrate the early-20th-century music hall or whatever.) Now the response to this born-alienated condition of ours might be the despair of an art wholly given over to performances of its own impossibility. To me, the least interesting version of modernism in a figure like Beckett, and the least interesting form of modernist pastiche today in the sons of Sebald and Knausgaard. But it might also be the renewed dramatization of the question, which itself occurs anew in each generation. No style or rhetoric or form has ever been wholly original but can always be reanimated by new content or new combinations. To quote Harold Bloom quoting the Mishnah, "You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it." As for your specific question, I'd take it on a case-by-case basis. Every new project demands its own form. Sometimes characteristically modernist styles can be a legitimate part of that form, as long as it doesn't seem too much like a gimmick.

[sciencestyled]

The Curious Case of a Monkey and His iPhone: Why Socrates Had to Enlighten You All on Evolutionary Shenanigans

There I was, minding my own intellectual business, loitering in the Agora, when I stumbled upon something stranger than a Spartan dancing sober. A group of youths—let’s call them the “Virtually Enthralled”—were gathered around a glowing slab, each of their heads craned downward as if caught in a perpetual, collective bow of reverence. Now, I thought, are they gazing upon some new oracle? A fresh twist from the gods? Alas, dear reader, the only deity worshiped there was the dreaded TikTok.

You might think an old philosopher like myself could not possibly comprehend such matters. But oh, contrary to what my unshorn hair and tattered toga may suggest, I keep up. So, in my unquenchable thirst for truth, I leaned over a particularly entranced youth and, risking a crick in my neck, asked, “What sacred knowledge binds your gaze so tightly to this… rectangular shrine?” He looked up, eyes glazed over with the dull sheen of centuries-old knowledge lost, and muttered, “Chill, dude, just watching a gorilla learn how to use an iPhone.”

Ah, I thought. It’s finally come to this.

That night, unable to shake the image of the gorilla’s fingers swiping and poking at a screen like a caveman discovering fire, I felt a terrible revelation creep over me: Perhaps humans aren’t as far from our primate brethren as we so proudly think. With every inch of screen-scroll, every swipe to reject knowledge in favor of idle amusement, these mortals were baring their evolutionary roots in the most spectacularly banal way possible.

Now, in my time, philosophical debates were held in sun-dappled courtyards and lively marketplaces. Ideas fought like gladiators, truth duking it out against ignorance. But here? Here, evolution had led to a place where these youths, descendants of thinkers and doers, were mesmerized by a gorilla—whose big breakthrough was mastering “double-tap to like.” To say my interest was piqued is to understate the way it dug into me like a misplaced sandal pebble.

I sought clarity, as any self-respecting philosopher would. I visited temples, questioned the priests, and even bothered the local playwrights—drunkards though they may be—for insight. Each answer led me back to a terrifying conclusion: humanity needed a philosophical intervention before our evolutionary forebears swung right back into control of our minds. And I, Socrates, was bound by duty to lay the truth bare, however inconvenient it might be for these devotees of virtual distractions.

So, in an act most uncharacteristic of my time, I concocted a plan to make a video. Yes, a video—a modern “dialogue” for the eyes, crafted to seize attention like a loud symposium gone wrong. The title? Naturally, I opted for something simple yet provocative, a name to stir curiosity while demanding you confront that vast gap—or lack thereof—between your swiping, binge-watching self and our hairy, tree-swinging relatives.

Imagine, I implored in this visual dialogue, what the great apes of our lineage must think of our advances, our shiny little devices, our leaps in civilization. Did they not see us as we swipe and scroll, hunched in the posture of our primate kin, glancing downward as if in constant search of lost fleas? Indeed, to consider evolution as a forward march of progress would be to overlook the glaringly obvious: that sometimes, like in a poorly rehearsed comedy, we take two steps forward only to trip, fall back, and giggle at our own evolutionary absurdity.

With this mission to bring enlightenment to the Virtually Enthralled, I set forth to craft a visual dialogue on evolution’s humorous ironies, exposing how humanity’s journey to dominance might not be as upward a climb as we’d like to believe. It’s a farce as much as it is a fact, this human evolution. I warn you, dear viewer, as you embark on this visual symposium: prepare to laugh, ponder, and perhaps recoil as you see just how close you are to your primate ancestors.

After all, a philosopher must do his part to shake the sleeping souls awake—even if it means coming to terms with the fact that somewhere, somehow, we all have a little monkey in us.

[chinneths]

The Relativity of Wrong | By Isaac Asimov

I received a letter from a reader the other day. It was handwritten in crabbed penmanship so that it was very difficult to read. Nevertheless, I tried to make it out just in case it might prove to be important.

In the first sentence, he told me he was majoring in English Literature, but felt he needed to teach me science. (I sighed a bit, for I knew very few English Lit majors who are equipped to teach me science, but I am very aware of the vast state of my ignorance and I am prepared to learn as much as I can from anyone, however low on the social scale, so I read on.)

It seemed that in one of my innumerable essays, here and elsewhere, I had expressed a certain gladness at living in a century in which we finally got the basis of the Universe straight.

I didn’t go into detail in the matter, but what I meant was that we now know the basic rules governing the Universe, together with the gravitational interrelationships of its gross components, as shown in the theory of relativity worked out between 1905 and 1916. We also know the basic rules governing the subatomic particles and their interrelationships, since these are very neatly described by the quantum theory worked out between 1900 and 1930. What’s more, we have found that the galaxies and clusters of galaxies are the basic units of the physical Universe, as discovered between 1920 and 1930.

These are all twentieth-century discoveries, you see.

The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the Universe at last, and in every century they were proven to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about out modern “knowledge” is that it is wrong.

The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. “If I am the wisest man,” said Socrates, “it is because I alone know that I know nothing.” The implication was that I was very foolish because I knew a great deal.

Alas, none of this was new to me. (There is very little that is new to me; I wish my corresponders would realize this.) This particular thesis was addressed to me a quarter of a century ago by John Campbell, who specialized in irritating me. He also told me that all theories are proven wrong in time.

My answer to him was, “John, when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.”

The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that “right” and “wrong” are absolute; that everything that isn’t perfectly and completely right is totally and equally wrong.

However, I don’t think that’s so. It seems to me that right and wrong are fuzzy concepts, and I will devote this essay to an explanation of why I think so.

First, let me dispose of Socrates because I am sick and tired of this pretense that knowing you know nothing is a mark of wisdom.

No one knows nothing. In a matter of days, babies learn to recognize their mothers.

Socrates would agree, of course, and explain that knowledge of trivia is not what he means. He means that in the great abstractions over which human beings debate, one should start without preconceived, unexamined notions, and that he alone knew this. (What an enormously arrogant claim!)

In his discussions of such matters as “What is justice?” or “What is virtue?” he took the attitude that he knew nothing and had to be instructed by others. (This is called “Socratic irony,” for Socrates knew very well that he knew a great deal more than the poor souls he was picking on.) By pretending ignorance, Socrates lured others into propounding their views on such abstractions. Socrates then, by a series of ignorant-sounding questions, forced the others into such a mélange of self-contradictions that they would finally break down and admit they didn’t know what they were talking about.

It is the mark of the marvelous toleration of the Athenians that they let this continue for decades and that it wasn’t till Socrates turned seventy that they broke down and forced him to drink poison.

Now where do we get the notion that “right” and “wrong” are absolutes? It seems to me that this arises in the early grades, when children who know very little are taught by teachers who know very little more.

Young children learn spelling and arithmetic, for instance, and here we tumble into apparent absolutes.

How do you spell “sugar?” Answer: s-u-g-a-r. That is right. Anything else is wrong.

How much is 2 + 2? The answer is 4. That is right. Anything else is wrong.

Having exact answers, and having absolute rights and wrongs, minimizes the necessity of thinking, and that pleases both students and teachers. For that reason, students and teachers alike prefer short-answer tests to essay tests; multiple-choice over blank short-answer tests; and true-false tests over multiple-choice.

But short-answer tests are, to my way of thinking, useless as a measure of the student’s understanding of a subject. They are merely a test of the efficiency of his ability to memorize.

You can see what I mean as soon as you admit that right and wrong are relative.

How do you spell “sugar?” Suppose Alice spells it p-q-z-z-f and Genevieve spells it s-h-u-g-e-r. Both are wrong, but is there any doubt that Alice is wronger than Genevieve? For that matter, I think it is possible to argue that Genevieve’s spelling is superior to the “right” one.

Or suppose you spell “sugar”: s-u-c-r-o-s-e, or C12H22O11. Strictly speaking, you are wrong each time, but you’re displaying a certain knowledge of the subject beyond conventional spelling.

Suppose then the test question was: how many different ways can you spell “sugar?” Justify each.

Naturally, the student would have to do a lot of thinking and, in the end, exhibit how much or how little he knows. The teacher would also have to do a lot of thinking in the attempt to evaluate how much or how little the student knows. Both, I imagine, would be outraged.

Again, how much is 2 + 2? Suppose Joseph says: 2 + 2 = purple, while Maxwell says: 2 + 2 = 17. Both are wrong but isn’t it fair to say that Joseph is wronger than Maxwell?

Suppose you said: 2 + 2 = an integer. You’d be right, wouldn’t you? Or suppose you said: 2 + 2 = an even integer. You’d be righter. Or suppose you said: 2 + 2 = 3.999. Wouldn’t you be nearly right?

If the teacher wants 4 for an answer and won’t distinguish between the various wrongs, doesn’t that set an unnecessary limit to understanding?

Suppose the question is, how much is 9 + 5?, and you answer 2. Will you not be excoriated and held up to ridicule, and will you not be told that 9 + 5 = 14?

If you were then told that 9 hours had pass since midnight and it was therefore 9 o'clock, and were asked what time it would be in 5 more hours, and you answered 14 o'clock on the grounds that 9 + 5 = 14, would you not be excoriated again, and told that it would be 2 o'clock? Apparently, in that case, 9 + 5 = 2 after all.

Or again suppose, Richard says: 2 + 2 = 11, and before the teacher can send him home with a note to his mother, he adds, “To the base 3, of course.” He’d be right.

Here’s another example. The teacher asks: “Who is the fortieth President of the United States?” and Barbara says, “There isn’t any, teacher.”

“Wrong!” says the teacher, “Ronald Reagan is the fortieth President of the United States.”

“Not at all,” says Barbara, “I have here a list of all the men who have served as President of the United States under the Constitution, from George Washington to Ronald Reagan, and there are only thirty-nine of them, so there is no fortieth President.”

“Ah,” says the teacher, “but Grover Cleveland served two nonconsecutive terms, one from 1885 to 1889, and the second from 1893 to 1897. He counts as both the twenty-second and twenty-fourth President. That is why Ronald Reagan is the thirty-ninth person to serve as President of the United States, and is, at the same time, the fortieth President of the United States.”

Isn’t that ridiculous? Why should a person be counted twice if his terms are nonconsecutive, and only once if he served two consecutive terms? Pure convention! Yet Barbara is marked wrong—just as wrong as if she had said that the fortieth President of the United States is Fidel Castro.

Therefore, when my friend the English Literature expert tells me that in every century scientists think they have worked out the Universe and are always wrong, what I want to know is how wrong are they? Are they always wrong to the same degree? Let’s take an example.

In the early days of civilization, the general feeling was that the Earth was flat.

This was not because people were stupid, or because they were intent on believing silly things. They felt it was flat on the basis of sound evidence. It was not just a matter of “That’s how it looks,” because the Earth does not look flat. It looks chaotically bumpy, with hills, valleys, ravines, cliffs, and so on.

Of course, there are plains where, over limited areas, the Earth’s surface does look fairly flat. One of those plains is in the Tigris-Euphrates area where the first historical civilization (one with writing) developed, that of the Sumerians.

Perhaps it was the appearance of the plain that may have persuaded the clever Sumerians to accept the generalization that the Earth was flat; that if you somehow evened out all the elevations and depressions, you would be left with flatness. Contributing to the notion may have been the fact that stretches of water (ponds and lakes) looked pretty flat on quiet days.

Another way of looking at it is to ask what is the “curvature” of Earth’s surface. Over a considerable length, how much does the surface deviate (on the average) from perfect flatness. The flat-Earth theory would make it seem that the surface doesn’t deviate from flatness at all, that its curvature is 0 to the mile.

Nowadays, of course, we are taught that the flat-Earth theory is wrong; that it is all wrong, terribly wrong, absolutely. But it isn’t. The curvature of the Earth is nearly 0 per mile, so that although the flat-Earth theory is wrong, it happens to be nearly right. That’s why the theory lasted so long.

There were reasons, to be sure, to find the flat-Earth theory unsatisfactory and, about 350 B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle summarized them. First, certain stars disappeared beyond the Southern Hemisphere as one traveled north, and beyond the Northern Hemisphere as one traveled south. Second, the Earth’s shadow on the Moon during a lunar eclipse was always the arc of a circle. Third, here on Earth itself, ships disappeared beyond the horizon hull-first in whatever direction they were traveling.

All three observations could not be reasonably explained if the Earth’s surface were flat, but could be explained by assuming the Earth to be a sphere.

What’s more, Aristotle believed that all solid matter tended to move toward a common center, and if solid matter did this, it would end up as a sphere. A given volume of matter is, on the average, closer to a common center if it is a sphere than if it is any other shape whatever.

About a century after Aristotle, the Greek philosopher Eratosthenes noted that the Sun cast a shadow of different lengths at different latitudes (all the shadows would be the same length if the Earth’s surface were flat). From the difference in shadow length, he calculated the size of the earthly sphere and it turned out to be 25,000 miles in circumference.

The curvature of such a sphere is about 0.000126 per mile, a quantity very close to 0 per mile as you can see, and one not easily measured by the techniques at the disposal of the ancients. The tiny difference between 0 and 0.000126 accounts for the fact that it took so long to pass from the flat Earth to the spherical Earth.

Mind you, even a tiny difference, such at that between 0 and 0.000126, can be extremely important. That difference mounts up. The Earth cannot be mapped over large areas with any accuracy at all if the difference isn’t taken into account and if the Earth isn’t considered a sphere rather than a flat surface. Long ocean voyages can’t be undertaken with any reasonable way of locating one’s own position in the ocean unless the Earth is considered spherical rather than flat.

Furthermore, the flat Earth presupposes the possibility of an infinite Earth, or of the existence of an “end” to the surface. The spherical Earth, however, postulates an Earth that is both endless and yet finite, and it is the latter postulate that is consistent with all later findings.

So although the flat-Earth theory is only slightly wrong and is a credit to its inventors, all things considered, it is wrong enough to be discarded in favor of the spherical-Earth theory.

And yet is the Earth a sphere?

No, it is not a sphere; not in the strict mathematical sense. A sphere has certain mathematical properties—for instance, all diameters (that is, all straight lines that pass from one point on its surface, through the center, to another point on its surface) have the same length.

That, however, is not true of the Earth. Various diameters of the Earth differ in length.

What gave people the notion the Earth wasn’t a true sphere? To begin with, the Sun and the Moon have outlines that are perfect circles within the limits of measurement in the early days of the telescope. This is consistent with the supposition that the Sun and Moon are perfectly spherical in shape.

However, when Jupiter and Saturn were observed by the first telescopic observers, it became quickly apparent that the outlines of those planets were not circles, but distinct ellipses. That meant that Jupiter and Saturn were not true spheres.

Isaac Newton, toward the end of the seventeenth century, showed that a massive body would form a sphere under the pull of gravitational forces (exactly as Aristotle had argued), but only if it were not rotating. If it were rotating, a centrifugal effect would be set up which would lift the body’s substance against gravity, and the effect would be greater the closer to the equator you progressed. The effect would also be greater the more rapidly a spherical object rotated and Jupiter and Saturn rotated very rapidly indeed.

The Earth rotated much more slowly than Jupiter or Saturn so the effect should be smaller, but it should still be there. Actual measurements of the curvature of the Earth were carried out in the eighteenth century and Newton was proved correct.

The Earth has an equatorial bulge, in other words. It is flattened at the poles. It is an “oblate spheroid” rather than a sphere. This means that the various diameters of the earth differ in length. The longest diameters are any of those that stretch from one point on the equator to an opposite point on the equator. The “equatorial diameter” is 12,755 kilometers (7,927 miles). The shortest diameter is from the North Pole to the South Pole and this “polar diameter” is 12,711 kilometers (7,900 miles).

The difference between the longest and shortest diameters is 44 kilometers (27 miles), and that means that the “oblateness” of the Earth (its departure from true sphericity) is 44/12,755, or 0.0034. This amounts to 1/3 of 1 percent.

To put it another way, on a flat surface, curvature is 0 per mile everywhere. On Earth’s spherical surface, curvature is 0.000126 per mile everywhere (or 8 inches per mile). On Earth’s oblate spheroidical surface, the curvature varies from 7.973 inches to the mile to 8.027 inches to the mile.

The correction in going from spherical to oblate spheroidal is much smaller than going from flat to spherical. Therefore, although the notion of the Earth as sphere is wrong, strictly speaking, it is not as wrong as the notion of the Earth as flat.

Even the oblate-spheroidal notion of the Earth is wrong, strictly speaking. In 1958, when the satellite Vanguard 1 was put into orbit about the Earth, it was able to measure the local gravitational pull of the Earth—and therefore its shape—with unprecedented precision. It turned out that the equatorial bulge south of the equator was slightly bulgier than the bulge north of the equator, and that the South Pole sea level was slightly nearer the center of the Earth than the North Pole sea level was.

There seemed no other way of describing this than by saying the Earth was pearshaped and at once many people decided that the Earth was nothing like a sphere but was shaped like a Bartlett pear dangling in space. Actually, the pearlike deviation from oblate-spheroid perfect was a matter of yards rather than miles and the adjustment of curvature was in the millionths of an inch per mile.

In short, my English Lit friend, living in a mental world of absolute rights and wrongs, may be imagining that because all theories are wrong, the Earth may be thought spherical now, but cubical next century, and a hollow icosahedron the next, and a doughnut shape the one after.

What actually happens is that once scientists get hold of a good concept they gradually refine and extend if with a greater and greater subtlety as their instruments of measurement improve. Theories are not so much wrong as incomplete.

This can be pointed out in many other cases than just the shape of the Earth. Even when a new theory seems to represent a revolution, it usually arises out of small refinements. If something more than a small refinement were needed, then the old theory would never have endured.

Copernicus switched from an Earth-centered planetary system to a Sun-centered one. In doing so, he switched from something that was obvious to something that was apparently ridiculous. However, it was a matter of finding better ways of calculating the motion of the planets in the sky and, eventually, the geocentric theory was just left behind. It was precisely because the old theory gave results that were fairly good by the measurement standards of the time that kept it in being so long.

Again, it is because the geological formations of the Earth change so slowly and the living things upon it evolve so slowly that it seemed reasonable at first to suppose that there was no change and that Earth and life always existed as they do today. If that were so, it would make no difference whether Earth and life were billions of years old or thousands. Thousands were easier to grasp.

But when careful observation showed that Earth and life were changing at a rate that was very tiny but not zero, then it became clear that Earth and life had to be very old. Modern geology came into being, and so did the notion of biological evolution.

If the rate of change were more rapid, geology and evolution would have reached their modern state in ancient times. It is only because the difference between the rate of change in a static Universe and the rate of change in an evolutionary one is that between zero and very nearly zero that the creationists can continue propagating their folly.

Again, how about the two great theories of the twentieth century; relativity and quantum mechanics?

Newton’s theories of motion and gravitation were very close to right, and they would have been absolutely right if only the speed of light were infinite. However, the speed of light is finite, and that had to be taken into account in Einstein’s relativistic equations, which were an extension and refinement of Newton’s equations.

You might say that the difference between infinite and finite is itself infinite, so why didn’t Newton’s equations fall to the ground at once? Let’s put it another way, and ask how long it takes light to travel over a distance of a meter.

If light traveled at infinite speed, it would take light 0 seconds to travel a meter. At the speed at which light actually travels, however, it takes it 0.0000000033 seconds. It is that difference between 0 and 0.0000000033 that Einstein corrected for.

Conceptually, the correction was as important as the correction of Earth’s curvature from 0 to 8 inches per mile was. Speeding subatomic particles wouldn’t behave the way they do without the correction, nor would particle accelerators work the way they do, nor nuclear bombs explode, nor the stars shine. Nevertheless, it was a tiny correction and it is no wonder that Newton, in his time, could not allow for it, since he was limited in his observations to speeds and distances over which the correction was insignificant.

Again, where the prequantum view of physics fell short was that it didn’t allow for the “graininess” of the Universe. All forms of energy had been thought to be continuous and to be capable of division into indefinitely smaller and smaller quantities.

This turned out to be not so. Energy comes in quanta, the size of which is dependent upon something called Planck’s constant. If Planck’s constant were equal to 0 erg-seconds, then energy would be continuous, and there would be no grain to the Universe. Planck’s constant, however, is equal to 0.000000000000000000000000066 erg-seconds. That is indeed a tiny deviation from zero, so tiny that ordinary questions of energy in everyday life need not concern themselves with it. When, however, you deal with subatomic particles, the graininess is sufficiently large, in comparison, to make it impossible to deal with them without taking quantum considerations into account.

Since the refinements in theory grow smaller and smaller, even quite ancient theories must have been sufficiently right to allow advances to be made; advances that were not wiped out by subsequent refinements.

The Greeks introduced the notion of latitude and longitude, for instance, and made reasonable maps of the Mediterranean basin even without taking sphericity into account, and we still use latitude and longitude today.

The Sumerians were probably the first to establish the principle that planetary movements in the sky exhibit regularity and can be predicted, and they proceeded to work out ways of doing so even though they assumed the Earth to be the center of the Universe. Their measurements have been enormously refined but the principle remains.

Newton’s theory of gravitation, while incomplete over vast distances and enormous speeds, is perfectly suitable for the Solar System. Halley’s Comet appears punctually as Newton’s theory of gravitation and laws of motion predict. All of rocketry is based on Newton, and Voyager II reached Uranus within a second of the predicted time. None of these things were outlawed by relativity.

In the nineteenth century, before quantum theory was dreamed of, the laws of thermodynamics were established, including the conservation of energy as first law, and the inevitable increase of entropy as the second law. Certain other conservation laws such as those of momentum, angular momentum, and electric charge were also established. So were Maxwell’s laws of electromagnetism. All remained firmly entrenched even after quantum theory came in.

Naturally, the theories we now have might be considered wrong in the simplistic sense of my English Lit correspondent, but in a much truer and subtler sense, they need only be considered incomplete.

For instance, quantum theory has produced something called “quantum weirdness” which brings into serious question the very nature of reality and which produces philosophical conundrums that physicists simply can’t seem to agree upon. It may be that we have reached a point where the human brain can no longer grasp matters, or it may be that quantum theory is incomplete and that once it is properly extended, all the “weirdness” will disappear.

Again, quantum theory and relativity seem to be independent of each other, so that while quantum theory makes it seem possible that three of the four known interactions can be combined into one mathematical system, gravitation—the realm of relativity—as yet seems intransigent.

If quantum theory and relativity can be combined, a true “unified field theory” may become possible.

If all this is done, however, it would be a still finer refinement that would affect the edges of the known—the nature of the big bang and the creation of the Universe, the properties at the center of black holes, some subtle points about the evolution of galaxies and supernovas, and so on.

Virtually all that we know today, however, would remain untouched and when I say I am glad that I live in a century when the Universe is essentially understood, I think I am justified.

[jiejie-eonni-onee-sama]

I’d put a crown at your feet... (Part I)

For the dearest @marilynmonroefanfics​ 💝👄

Hope you’ll like the story.

TW: mentions of smut

June 1972. Castle of Balmoral.

Walking through the Scottish lands, Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh, was in a foul mood. 

He felt like his life was falling apart for two years. Or maybe for more years? 

He did not remember when it went sour, but for sure, he knew that his life was a complete mess.

First of all, his marriage was falling apart: he and Elizabeth grew distant from each other. Farewell, the sweet romance of the beginning! Even the birth of Edward, their last child, did not manage to patch things up between them.

Secondly, his “dear” wife did not show any maternal love for their children. She cast Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward away, often scolding them for their mistakes and barely complimenting their efforts or successes. 

Philip had to admit that he was not really present for his children, but he was not at ease with them. Moreover, Elizabeth took perverse pleasure remembering his royal duties.

But the final straw was when he discovered that his spouse enjoyed the company of other men, to say the least.

Amazing! And he was the one the press accused of being a cheating husband! It is a topsy-turvy world!

As he was brooding over the disaster of his personal life, he did not hear the sound of a four-wheel-drive coming near to him until a familiar voice called him:

"Hello there, dear brother-in-law!"

He turned around and saw Margaret at the wheel of her vehicle, a slight smile on her face.

"What are you doing here?"

"Invading Scotland! Seriously, I'm escaping from my sister's boring sycophants! They were wasting my day!"

Philip smirked: his sister-in-law was the best person to understand how he felt in this oppressive world. Even if they did not have the same character, Philip and Margaret managed to get along. Especially since they had to tolerate Elizabeth's obnoxious behavior for some years.

"If you talk about the Daniels and the Furlingtons, you took the best decision! I would do the same!"

"Is it not what you're currently doing? Escaping from my dear sister at long strides?"

The prince shrugged.

"Maybe..."

"I see... Fancy a ride?"

"Is it risky?" joked Philip.

"Oh, don't be such a coward! Get in the car!"

"How could I refuse such a lovely request?" said her brother-in-law with irony as he climbed in the car!

Soon after, they were driving into the Scottish countryside, enjoying the view at every turn. Philip admitted that his legs needed some rest after his long walk.

After half an hour of driving, Margaret stopped the car, and they appreciated the point of view.

"Well, I have to tell: you are an excellent driver!"

"Oh, I had a good teacher! Dad and I used to drive there when I was younger!"

She sadly smiled.

"I remember his laugh... He told me how bold I was!"

"I wish I could have those kinds of memories with my own father!" answered Philip.

"Sure, you were not lucky!"

Both stayed silent, watching the calm landscape until Margaret spoke again.

"If Dad were among us, he would never let Elizabeth behaving that way with you or the children!"

"You're probably right. Unfortunately, I don't know what your mother thinks about it!"

"Don't worry about that! She often criticizes Lizzie for her lack of maternal love! She said that the monarch of Great Britain should never forget both their royal obligations and their parental duties!"

"Regrettably, your sister does not really care about it!"

Margaret scoffed.

"You bet she did not listen! My dear sister repeats that her children are more a burden than a blessing!"

She turned towards Philip.

"Speaking of that, make some effort, damn it! It looks like you're trying to avoid them at any cost! Don't you love your children?"

This question hit Philip like a punch!

"What are you talking about? Of course, I love my children!"

"Then, act like it! They are craving affection, and they cannot count on their mother for that! They need their father, and if you don't do anything to rectify the situation, you will regret it!"

The Duke of Edinburgh sighed.

"I know that it's not an excuse, but nobody taught me how to be a father. I tried my best, but I only witness the disaster I've created!"

"Don't be so pessimistic, or you're going to make me depressed! Sincerely, between you and my sister, you are the better parent! You just have to improve it, and it's not too late!"

She frowned.

"But I can't even believe Lizzie dared cheat on you with this jackass!"

"You know the name of her lover?"

"The most recent one? Of course, I know his name... and you know him too!"

"Who is it?"

"You won't like it... But it's Roger Acherville, one of your squires!"

Enraged, Philip struck the dashboard.

"DAMN IT! THIS RASCAL BOWED AND SCRAPED IN FRONT OF ME, BUT SHARED MY WIFE'S BED!"

Margaret bit her lip: she wished she never had to tell that news to her brother-in-law, but she must tell him the truth, even if it hurts like hell!

"I'm sorry, Philip. I'd prefer never tell you this..."

He interrupted her.

"No, you were right. You did well to tell me who my wife is cheating on me with right now!"

Philip was upset. How could Elizabeth do such a thing to him, after all they have been through together?

"But now I don't know what to do ..."

He turned to Margaret and saw that she was wearing a big, mischievous smile.

The kind of smile that announced that she had an idea behind her head and that didn't promise well.

"What are you going to tell me again as a twisted idea?"

"You know the law of retaliation: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth..."

"I know this motto, indeed. And then?"

"Well, what I mean is... I allow you to get your own back on my sister!"

Philip opened his eyes wide: he thought he hallucinated? Did Margaret just authorize him to cheat on Elizabeth? 

Years ago, she would have torn his eyes out if he ever imagines that possibility!

But now, the circumstances were different, and she was his best ally in Buckingham Palace.

Moreover, the idea of finding solace in someone else's arms was not unpleasant... 

He nodded.

"Alright! You convinced me!"

"Really?"

"Yes! After all, why my dear wife should be the one having fun?"

"That's the spirit, dear in-law! Before you start finding a lover, do you know what would make me happy?"

"What?"

"Shave that goddamn beard! You look like a caveman!"

The prince consort laughed: he almost forgot his bushy beard!

"What is the problem with that? It looks nice to me! People would think that I am an explorer! Or a Viking: after all, I am a Danish prince! Or maybe Socrates, as I am a Greek Prince too!"

"Of course, and I look like the lost twin of Marilyn Monroe!" she taunted the Duke while playfully punching him on the shoulder.

The two royals laughed and spoke for a long time, far from their daily issues. After all, this day was the beginning of a new journey for Philip Mountbatten...

Two months later. August 1972

Philip adjusted his bow tie: he hoped he wasn't doing anything stupid by accepting Margaret's invitation to one of her parties. She had promised him that he would not be bored and that he might find the perfect person.

He sighed: he knew he was running a risk looking for a mistress. 

If ever the press caught him in the arms of a woman, his reputation was gone! And his wife would not hesitate to put him down!

Straightening his chest, he gave a satisfied smile and got ready to join his sister-in-law when his son Andrew entered the room:

"Good evening, father ... Oh, you are very elegant!"

"Thanks, Andrew."

"Are you going out tonight?"

"Indeed, yes. I'm accompanying your Aunt Margaret to one of her parties. According to her, I am the guest of honor."

The 12-year-old boy nodded.

"Does ... Mother approve of this?"

"I have to. At least, your father will stop my sister from doing something stupid!" answered a familiar voice.

With these words, Queen Elizabeth entered the room. Dressed in a pearl gray satin dress, she had put on her most exquisite jewelry. She looked stern, almost disdainful. 

"Good evening, mother. You are beautiful tonight!"

The queen ignored the compliment and turned to her husband.

"Can I count on you so that Margaret doesn't end up dead drunk in another man's bed?"

"I'll do my best ... And you, what have you planned tonight?"

"I'm attending a reception at the Indian Embassy. As for Mother, she spends the evening with her lady-in-waiting, and Edward stays with them."

"And what about Charles and Anne?"

"I have no idea, and I don't want to know!"

Philip raised his eyebrows.

"I thought every parent should be worried about their children's nighttime activities!"

She replied in an annoyed tone.

"Oh, don't say such nonsense! They are old enough to fend for themselves! Besides, I have other priorities!"

She glanced at the clock that sat quietly in the back of the room.

"If you have nothing else to tell me, I'll leave you! I have to go to the embassy! Have a good evening!"

She turned on her heels and took off at a brisk pace, leaving her husband and son alone.

The Duke saw the sad look on Andrew's face and felt pain for him: how many times has he witnessed his wife ignore their children's words?

He tried to cheer his son up:

"Come on, it's nothing. I'm sure your compliment made your mother happy!"

Andrew replied:

"Don't bother too much about it, father. She does not care what I tell her. And she does the same to Charles, Anne, and even Edward!"

The young boy turned his gaze to his father:

"Even you, she snubs you all the time!"

"Well ... let's say that between adults, things can get more complicated!"

"Well, that doesn't make you want to be an adult!"

Philip laughed at the clear opinion of his third child.

"Don't worry, it won't be like this all the time! I'm sure you'll find someone you get along with!"

"I hope so too..."

Changing the subject, Philip asked:

"So what about you? What are you doing tonight?"

"I'm staying with Grandma and Edward. At least, I am sure to have a good evening!"

"I think so too. Well, I have to leave you: if I arrive late, your aunt might strangle me!"

"What are you waiting for? Go ahead!"

"I'm going! See you tomorrow!"

"See you tomorrow, father!"

Philip kissed his son on the forehead before heading outside the palace, where a limousine awaited him.

He got into the back of the vehicle and ordered his driver:

"We can go, Henry! Let's go to Princess Margaret's residence!"

"Right away, Your Highness!"

And the vehicle set off, taking the prince to the place of the party.

A few minutes later, he arrived outside Kensington Palace, where several luxury cars were already parked in the driveway.

With a steady step, he entered the house where a butler greeted him with deference:

"Welcome to Kensington Palace, Your Royal Highness."

"Thank you. Could you tell the Princess that I have arrived?"

"She's in the main living room, Your Highness. If you please follow me, sir ..."

The Duke of Edinburgh followed the servant into a large room with dancing music and laughter.

Philip spotted Margaret, in her best dress, chatting happily with her guests.

The butler walked up to his employer and announced:

"Lady Snowden, His Royal Highness Duke Philip of Edinburgh has arrived."

"Perfect! He's coming at the right time! Thanks, Howard!" Margaret exclaimed before going to greet her brother-in-law.

"Good evening, Philip. I see you dressed up… But you still haven't shaved your goddamn beard! What did I tell you?"

“This must be my rebellious side…” smirked Philip.

This remark amused the princess, who grinned.

"You got the point!"

She took his wrist.

"Come on! I have some lovely people to introduce you to!"

And so Philip became acquainted with singers, actors, dancers, musicians, artists, and other socialites of good English society.

Suddenly, he noticed the presence of a young man who was talking to some artists.

Although he tried to stay focused on the conversation, he found it difficult to take his eyes off this mysterious young man.

The latter had dark skin, raven hair, and intense ebony eyes. Dressed in an elegant black suit, he was rather slender and had elegant hands.

Philip saw that he was wearing light makeup that showed off his face. 

Margaret saw that her brother-in-law seemed hypnotized by the young man. She smiled:

"Tell me, Philip, would you like me to do the introductions with that handsome brunette over there?"

"What? Come on, Margaret, you don't have to ..."

"No way! Follow me!"

Letting out a long sigh, the Duke followed the Princess, who addressed her guests:

"So, are you having fun?"

"Absolutely, Maggie! This night is awesome!"

"I am delighted about it!"

She turned to the man who accompanied the mysterious young man.

"Jonathan, you nasty little secretive! You did not present me this delicious young person who accompanies you!"

"Where are my good manners? Margaret, Prince Philip, let me introduce you to Piero De Angelis! He is a model of your husband Anthony!"

"I should have guessed! Anthony has always had an eye for beauty!"

The British princess turned to the man named Piero.

"And you, my dear, how do you like this evening? Are you having fun, I hope?"

"Oh yes, Your Highness. I'm having a great evening!"

The prince noticed that he had a voice that was soft enough for a man.

"I am delighted about it!" smiled Margaret, who nudged Philip lightly.

The latter, having understood the message, cleared his throat before asking:

"Like that, your name is Piero? Like the character from commedia dell'arte?"

"Not quite, but I admit it sounds like it! My name is spelled P-I-E-R-O, while the character is spelled P-I-E-R-R-O-T. That is all the difference!"

"I see ... When you take a closer look, you look a bit like him!"

"Oh, really? Do I look melancholic?"

"No, but your makeup is as subtle as his!"

His sister-in-law slapped her forehead: she feared Philip might bring out one of his sharp sense of humor. His jokes tend to upset those involved. 

However, she did not expect Piero to respond maliciously:

"Beware, Your Highness: appearances are often deceptive. For example, when I look at you, I can say that it must be several centuries since you last saw a shaving foam!"

This gibe amused Margaret, who gave a fit of laughter, while the other guests gasped in horror: how dared this young commoner speaking to the prince consort with such poor manners?

As for Philip, he was taken aback: no one ever ventured to respond to one of his jokes. But he had to say: Piero had some spirit, and he liked that!

He laughed:

"Well played! I appreciate people with some character!"

Philip offered his hand to the young man:

"I know when I lost the game."

Smiling, the young Mister De Angelis shook hands with the prince:

"It was an honor verbally sparring with a member of the Royal family!"

At the second their hands touched, Philip felt like electricity went all over his body. He thought it has been years since he underwent such emotion... 

As for Piero, he was mesmerized: he always found Prince Philip attractive when he saw him on official pictures, but now, the young man could affirm that the prince consort was handsome, to say the least. 

The young man also observed that Philip's piercing eyes hid something else, but he could not tell what: sadness? Or melancholy? Hope? 

Yet, he was sure that the Duke of Edinburgh was not as happy as he seemed.

When they stopped shaking hands, Piero bowed respectfully before Philip:

"It was a pleasure speaking with you, sir."

"The pleasure was mine, Signore De Angelis."

Amused, the young man slightly bowed his head before he turned his heels and walked away.

Philip smirked: this young Piero was the most interesting man he ever met so far.

He glanced at Margaret, who smirked slightly. Looks like she had something in her mind...

"What?"

"Nothing... I just confirm that you find your match!" she muttered as she sipped her glass of Martini.

Rolling his eyes, Philip answered:

"Please, do not make overly ambitious plans!"

"What? Do not give me that stern look!"

Shaking his head in disbelief, Philip glanced at the young man with a sly smile on his face: he had the feeling that Piero would have an intriguing role in the future...

Two weeks later, at Kensington Palace.

In the main living room of the palace, Philip and Margaret talked about many gossips and their respective marriages.

"I'm glad to hear that you and Anthony are on better terms!"

"Yes. I would not lie, it was struggling. But, in the end, it is worth fighting for!"

The prince nodded before sighing:

"I really hoped that things would get better between Elizabeth and me. Unfortunately, I have to certify that it only worsens! She avoids me most of the time, and I am sure she pretends to have different appointments to be with this Acherville!"

His sister-in-law puts a sympathetic hand on his arm.

"I am sincerely sorry for this, Philip."

"Thank you, Margaret. But, my hardship only strengthens my desire to see someone else... Someone who can love me for who I am!"

An impish smile came across Margaret's face.

"A little bird tells me that you have a specific young man in your mind, am I right?"

The Duke of Edinburgh raised his hands in defeat.

"There's no fooling you!"

The princess squealed in delight.

"I knew it! I saw this little sparkle in your eyes that says a lot about your feelings!"

"Wait a minute... Are not you upset by the fact that I may be romantically involved with a man?" 

She shrugged.

"As if I care! Choose whoever you want to sleep with, as long as it gets on Lizzie's nerves!"

"I recognize your open-minded character!" chuckled Philip.

"Indeed."

"Speaking of him, what can you tell me about this Piero De Angelis?"

"Are you reading on my mind? I was about to tell you what I know so far!"

"Go ahead!"

She cleared her throat and answered:

"Well, I asked my best friend, Lady Anne Tennant, to give me some pieces of information about him. According to her, he was born in a middle-class family who fled Italy during World War Two. Loving parents, close relationships with his siblings. A nice life, to sum up. 

He is six years older than Charles. She also told me that he graduated from Oxford, but he prefers modeling. He sometimes worked as a tutor for children of noble families. I approve of his model career: he has such good looks! It would be a shame not to take advantage of it!"

"Sure... What about his temperament? His hobbies?"

"As far as I know, he is an artist: he loves drawing, sculpting, dancing, taking artistic pictures, painting, acting, and singing! A perfect artist, I tell you. Those who know him say that he is patient, charming, cultivated, smart, polite, and humble... He has some humor, but you have already noticed it. Ah, I almost forgot! He has some... unusual tastes!"

Philip raised an eyebrow, puzzled.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't imagine something scandalous! It's just that he loves good fashion, jewels, and perfumes."

"He has a fondness for feminine things..."

"Exactly. Is it not a problem?"

"Oh, I would handle... At least, I'll have someone to give those kinds of presents!"

"That's the Philip I know! I might add that he currently lives in the area of Westbourne, in the neighborhood of Notting Hill... which is not far from here!"

"You planned everything, did not you?"

"I learn to anticipate, dear in-law! He lives in a small house, so you won't be disturbed by potential housemates."

Philip smiled before saying:

"Alright. So, am I supposed to go there, and ask him out?"

Her grin confused the prince consort.

"Oh, dear... That won't be necessary!"

As Philip was about to ask what she meant, a butler appeared:

"Your Highness, Mister De Angelis is here. Shall I let him in?"

"Perfect, just in time! Let him in, Howard!"

The prince could not believe his ears:

"You invite him?"

"Of course, dear in-law! Like this, you would get to know each other better!"

At the same time, Piero entered the room, escorted by the butler. Margaret gave her warmest smile towards the young man:

"Piero, caro mio! What a pleasure to see you! How are you since the last time?"

"I am fine, thank you. I did not expect an invitation from you..."

He noticed the presence of Philip and bowed:

"Your Highness..."

"Mister De Angelis..."

Suddenly, Margaret stood up from her place and said:

"Well, you know what? I'll pop over Lady Anne and picking some pastries, while you two have a nice little conversation. I would not be too long..."

"What? But..." started Philip.

"No protest in my house! Alright, see you later!"

She turned her heels and walked out of the palace, followed by her butler.

The two men stood silent, looking at each other. Piero broke the silence as he tried a joke:

"I see that you finally shaved your beard..."

The prince chuckled:

"Yes, indeed. As you can see, my interview with the shaving foam went well."

"I hope my joke didn't offend you."

"Absolutely not. I'm fond of that kind of blunt humor, and I was pretty happy to find someone to share it with!"

"You see me honored, Your Highness."

Philip shook his head negatively.

"No formalities with me: we are not at Buckingham Palace! You can call me Philip!"

Piero was surprised by this inquiry but didn't really pay attention:

"However you like, Philip. In that case, you can call me Piero. Or Peter, if you prefer."

"Understood, Piero."

The young man asked:

"Did your wife ask you to shave?"

Piero regretted asking that question because he saw a glimmer of sadness in the Duke's eyes.

The latter sighed:

"No, I was the one who took that initiative. And to be honest, my wife doesn't really care about my hair choices. In fact, she doesn't really care about me at all!"

This revelation surprised Piero: he did not expect Prince Philip to make such a confession to him about his married life!

"You ... are you arguing?"

"If only that was all that! But unfortunately, there is also indifference, contempt, and estrangement!"

"I am sincerely sorry for you, Your Highness. But you know, all may not be lost: things will surely work out ..."

Philip laughed bitterly:

"How I would like to be as optimistic as you! But when the person you love goes to seek passion elsewhere, you no longer have any illusions!"

"Indeed, seen from that angle, it is a bad start to save a marriage ... But why are you telling me all this? You do not have to tell me these things."

With these words, the prince approached the young artist and replied:

“That's right, I'm not supposed to tell anyone about it. But I've been looking for someone for so long who could listen to me and understand me. I'm tired of feeling isolated… Nonetheless, ever since I met you, Piero, it's like the light has returned to my life. Yes, I know we barely got to know each other, but I've always trusted my instincts when it comes to people I meet, and I've been right every time. "

Piero began to understand where the duke was going and panicked:

"Huh? Oh no! No, no, no, and three times no!"

"What do you mean?" Philip asked, confused.

"I can see exactly what you want to ask, and I refuse! I don't want to be a simple consolation prize! I saw what it was like to be the lover of a king or a prince, and it doesn't make you want to be one! "

He continued in a calm tone:

"I have no doubt that you are a handsome man with many qualities, but I cannot accept being just a passing lover until the day you reconcile with the queen. I do not like the idea of being a simple shoulder to cry on that you give up as soon as everything is better. "

Philip was speechless: he expected everything but that! However, he should have waited a bit before declaring his love. But the tension in his relationship was so unbearable that he despaired finding someone he could love unconditionally.

And this young Piero was the person he needed ... he still had to accept!

Philip dropped to his knees in front of the young man, and took his hands between his while looking at him with pleading eyes:

"I swear Piero: if you were to become my lover, it's because I feel like no love exists anymore between Elizabeth and me. I suffered from abandonment when I was just a child, and I know only too well the harm it does. I would never do this to a person who is dear to me..."

"But get up, damn it! If we were seen like that ..." Piero stammered, panicked.

"I don't care! I know you are suspicious of beautiful promises, but I swear to you that I will never disappoint you. You will always be showered with gifts ..."

"Hang on! I'm not a materialist!"

"I know, I know ... I will make sure to spend time with you, I will call you regularly ... I will be the most devoted lover that can exist!"

The young man laughs lightly:

"Please, it feels like a Barbara Cartland novel!"

"Thank you for this unflattering comparison!" grumbled the prince, who smiled.

Philip stood up and asked:

"What are you going to decide?"

Piero bit his lip: to tell the truth, he was torn between two feelings. On the one hand, he was scared to become the lover of the Duke of Edinburgh. He did not want to betray the Queen and being the next prey of the press!

But on the other side, he had to admit that he was always fascinated by Prince Philip and his magnetic charm. And then there was this vulnerability in this man that the young man found irresistible.

After a few minutes of thought, he replied:

"I admit that this somewhat surprising declaration of love took me by surprise. And even if I do not want to be an accomplice in adultery, I want to give you a chance!"

Reassured, Philip dared to kiss the young man's tanned forehead and replied:

"I promise you won't regret it! How much time do I have ahead of me?"

"Two months. I think that will give me time to see if I can give it a go or not."

"And that will be more than enough to convince you!" Philip laughed.

10 months later. May 1973

The spring sun sneaked through the curtains, caressing Piero's sleepy face.

The latter woke up slowly and opened his eyes, a smile on his face.

He turned and fondly looked at his sleeping lover. 

The young man smiled when he saw Philip so appeased: he was happy to have accepted the prince consort's proposal.

At the same time, the latter succeeded in his probationary period: he was a considerate, loving, affectionate, and caring boyfriend. 

Piero had never had so many presents in his life: the number of beautiful clothes that filled his wardrobe was impressive. And what about the magnificent jewelry that Philip brought back from his official trips?

All this had convinced the young man to become Prince Philip's lover, but also his confidant: it was to him that the Duke of Edinburgh told of his marital misfortunes and his doubts about his ability to be a good father for their children. And Piero felt privileged to be one of the few to know Philip's emotional wounds.

But what made their relationship so intense was when they had sex. Although the prince was a middle-aged man, he was an experienced and vigorous lover. The first time they had sex, they took their time to get to know each other's bodies better and to have fun.

The other times, the antics were more intense, even passionate ... as was the case last night, when they "celebrated" Philip's return from an official trip to America.

He remembered the feel of Philip's rough yet gentle hands on his body, their bodies moving against each other, their cries of pleasure filling the air... It was a pleasant experience, even if it was the umpteenth time they made love.

Of course, the two lovers would like to see each other more often, but they had to be discreet so as not to attract the attention of the media, let alone that of the Queen.

But hey, that didn't bother Piero who was delighted not to become the new darling of London.

Suddenly he felt Philip stretch and wake up. The prince turned to his lover and smiled at him:

"Hello, mein Liebe. You are very early."

"To believe that I took your bad habit!" the young man smiled.

"But it's not a bad habit to be early in the morning. On the contrary, it gives me more time to enjoy your presence ..." the duke replied before kissing his lover.

"Speaking of having time to spare, wasn't it today that you promised Charles to have lunch with him?"

"Damn, I almost forgot!" Philip exclaimed, hopping out of bed before rushing into the bathroom.

"What a scatterbrain!" Piero laughed while getting dressed.

"I heard you!"

"That was the goal, amore!" replied the young man, teasingly.

5 minutes later, the Duke comes out of the bathroom, ready to return to his obligations.

"Am I presentable?"

"Honestly, you are still handsome!"

Smiling, Philip kissed his lover's cheek:

"I'll call you tonight, I promise."

"I will wait impatiently for your call ... Come on, go join your son!"

"I'm going right now. See you tonight!"

"See you tonight!"

As the Duke left the house, Peter lay still on his bed, a thoughtful smile on his lips.

He was glad that the relationship between Philip and his children had improved, especially thanks to his advice.

Piero had relied on his life with his parents and siblings to empower his lover to be a more present father to his children.

Speaking of which, Piero would love to meet his lover's offspring: seeing how Philip talks about it, they must be very nice young people.

He would love to talk about the arts with Charles, who seemed to be very passionate about it. 

He would also appreciate being able to walk with Anne and talk about lots of things or reassure her about her future as a young bride. 

He would love to give fashion advice to Andrew who was already paying attention to his appearance when he was only 13 years old.

 And he would be happy to spend time with Edward, the youngest of the siblings. 

This boy worried his father a lot because he was silent and always seemed sad...

Suddenly the phone rang, interrupting Piero's thoughts. 

He picked up the phone:

"Hello?"

"**Dear Piero, how are you?**"

"Oh, hello, Margaret. I'm fine, thank you. How about you?"

"**Oh, it's okay. As much as I wish I hadn't had tea with Sally Frodenborough! This woman is so boring, I thought I was going to fall asleep!**"

The young man laughed.

"Now do you understand why I politely decline her invitations for tea?"

"**You'll tell me so much ... But let's forget about it! Tell me instead about your relationship with my esteemed brother-in-law! How is it going?**"

"It's a fairy tale, I can't say better!"

Piero knew he owed it all to Margaret: she was the one who introduced them at that party at Kensington Palace. Since then, she had become an ally and a friend of the couple and did not hesitate to invite them to her home so that they could meet again.

All this with the benevolent complicity of her husband, Anthony.

Over time, the princess and the young artist became good friends, and she often invited Piero to have tea at her place.

"**Glad to hear that, darling. Besides, I have to say that your relationship is very positive for Philip. He is happier, more serene, and closer to his children. You did a great job!**"

"I only encouraged him, he did the rest!"

"**Don't be so modest! However, I think my sister is suspecting something!**"

Hearing this, Piero felt a chill run through his spine: if the queen ever learned that her husband was cheating on her with a simple artist, he feared the worst!

"When you say she suspects something, do you mean she suspects Philip of adultery?"

"**No, I wouldn't go that far. But she can see the change in Philip's mood and she knows it's not her responsibility. She's not really trying to find out, but let's be careful!**"

"You're right ... But, I admit that there are times I wish I could spend more time with Philip. I understand he's doing his best without raising suspicion, but ..."

"**I see what you mean, and I understand you ... Oh wait: I just got an idea!**"

"Again? But it never stops"

"**My dad always said I was the most imaginative of the family. Okay, here's what we could do...**"

A week later, at Buckingham Palace.

In one of the palace rooms, Queen Elizabeth was having tea with her mother, Queen Mum.

"But what is Margaret doing? She should have been here since 10 minutes ago!" the sovereign said impatiently.

"Don't be so harsh on your sister, Lilibeth. I've heard that traffic in London is a bit chaotic right now. If so, she got stuck in a traffic jam."

"Maybe ..." Elizabeth replied.

Suddenly a servant entered the room and announced:

"Her Royal Highness, Princess Margaret, your Majesty!"

"Finally, here she is! Let her in, thank you!"

The servant shifted and let Margaret in, accompanied by a dark, smartly dressed young man.

"Hello, my dear sister! Hello, mom! Sorry for the inconvenience, but there was an accident near Piccadilly Circus which disrupted all traffic. I thought we would never get there!"

"You see, Elizabeth: I was right ..."

"Indeed, mum. But tell me, Margaret, who is this man with you?"

"I was just going to explain it to you: you see, I thought back to your history of tutoring for Andrew and Edward. And it turns out that this young man, Piero De Angelis, worked as a tutor in very good families. Here, I have some letters of recommendation from them. " she said, handing out a few missives.

Elizabeth took the letters and read them in silence. After reading it, she said:

"My word, your former employers are heap praise on you, Mr. De Angelis. They compliment your pedagogy, your intellect, as well as your patience with children."

She gave a slight smile.

"Since my sister seems to find you suitable for her nephews, I think we can take you on for a trial period."

Piero respectfully bowed while giving the monarch a hand kiss.

"It would be a great honor for me to serve you, Your Majesty!"

"This young man looks very pleasant to me. In my opinion, your sons will be in good hands!" said the Queen Mother, amused.

"Thank you for placing your trust in me, Your Excellency!" Piero replied, giving a slight bow.

At the same time, the door opened and Philip entered the room.

"Ah, Philip: at the right time! I present to you Andrew and Edward's new tutor."

Seeing who it was, Philip thought he was having a heart attack: but what was Piero doing here? It was too risky!

When he saw Margaret by his side, it didn't take long for him to realize that she had yet come up with a completely crazy idea.

Straightening up slightly, he cleared his throat and politely said:

"Welcome, sir ..."

"My name is Piero De Angelis, Your Highness. It is a huge honor to meet you in person!"

The duke refrained from smiling: he had forgotten that his lover was an excellent actor. And he had just proven his talent in front of everyone!

"And how did he convince you to hire him?"

"He was warmly recommended to me by several high society families. All were satisfied with the work of Mr. De Angelis. It seemed logical to me to have a competent person to supervise the education of your youngest sons."

"Sounds perfectly fine to me!" replied the prince consort.

Satisfied with her husband's response, the Queen said:

"Perfect. Then maybe you could introduce Mister De Angelis to his future students?"

"But of course. If you will follow me, sir ..."

And as they were about to leave, Margaret followed on their heels:

"I'm going with them, just to make sure Philip would not terrorize the poor schoolmaster!"

"Hey, I am not a monster!" scoffed Philip.

The three left the room. The duke waited to be far from his wife to scolding his lover and his sister-in-law.

"What's got into you? Did you ever think about the risk of being caught?"

"Oh, don't be such a coward! I thought you would be pleased to have your lovebird here!" whispered Margaret.

"And I thought it would be easier for you if I work here. You won't have to find excuses to see me... Besides, I wanted to meet your children."

The prince consort raised an eyebrow.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me: I wanted to meet your children. You talked about them since we started dating, that I aspired to know them better."

Philip pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed: it would be a miracle if Margaret and Piero did not drive him crazy. But, at least, he would manage to spend quality time with his sweetheart. So, why not take the risk?

"Fine, you convinced me. But, we have to intensify our discretion. Otherwise, we will be doomed!"

"I'll be careful, don't worry!" promised Piero as he gently held his lover's hand.

"Aw, you are so cute!" mockingly cooed Margaret.

"Please, Maggie: stop killing the mood!" grumbled the prince consort, rolling his eyes.

4 months later. August 1973.

"How do you find my drawing, Piero?"

"Let me look at it... Oh, it's beautiful! You have some talent, Edward!"

The young boy happily giggled: he really appreciated his new tutor. Unlike his predecessor, Piero was kind, patient, funny, and really interesting. Thanks to him, the little prince quickly understood his lesson by heart, and his grades improved. The same evolution can be noticed for Andrew: the teenager preferred learning with Piero to listening to his teachers at school.

"You think I am talented?"

"Absolutely! And for who you draw this?"

"For Anne! It would be her present for her wedding!"

"That's absolutely sweet, Edward. I am sure that she would love it!"

Speaking of the princess, she entered the room.

"Good afternoon, Mister De Angelis! Hello, Eddie!"

"Hi, Annie!"

"Good afternoon, Your Highness. How are you today?"

"Fine, thanks. I just come back from a horse-riding session with Mark!"

"Oh, lovely. How it went?"

"It went nice until it started raining. But we finished fast, so I would not soil the clean wooden floors of Buckingham Palace!" snickered Anne.

"Annie! Look what I've drawn for you!" cheerfully exclaimed Edward as he handed his drawing to his sister.

"Oh, thank you: I love it! I will show it to Mark: he would be impressed!"

"Can I draw something for him?"

"Why don't you ask him when he will come back?"

"Alright, I will wait!"

At the same time, Andrew entered the room, dressed in a nice suit.

"Good grief! I thought Mr. Brownsfield would never let us go!"

"Watch your language, young man! If your mother hears you, you will end up being lectured for hours!" gently advised Piero.

"I know, I know... But I am so relieved to be here!"

"I have noticed!"

Anne lightly cleared her throat.

"Piero, can we talk... in private with Andrew and you?"

"Of course! Edward, could you go with your grandmother? I have to discuss some important topics with your siblings."

"Are we finishing the lesson?"

"Yes, indeed. You can go!"

"Alright!" nodded the young boy as he exited the salon.

Soon as Edward left, the young man asked:

"What do you want to talk about, Anne?"

The princess sighed before answering:

"Well, it's about Charles... He is not well."

"Do you mean he is ill?"

"Depressed would be more accurate!"

"Oh, dear! And what depress him?"

Andrew explained:

"Well, his ex-girlfriend got married in July! And he did not really cope with their separation, months ago!"

Piero nodded: he knew that Charles was heart-broken since Camilla Shand, his former sweetheart, ended their love story last year. But he did not expect to be downcast to this point.

"And do you want me... to have a conversation with him?"

"Anne and I thought it would be helpful. After all, you are close to his age!"

"Mark tried to cheer his mood, but it did not work well!"

"Mh, I see... Fine, I will see what I can do!"

The two princes seemed relieved.

"Thank you for your help, Piero."

"That's what I am supposed to do. Where is he?"

"In the gardens. He needed some air..."

Thanking Anne and Andrew, Piero walked downstairs to the gardens where he found Charles, wandering like a lost soul.

"Charles?"

The Crown Prince looked at the schoolmaster and the latter saw deep grief in his eyes.

Slightly sighing, Piero kindly asked:

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I... I don't know."

"As you want. Perhaps it would take a weight off your mind..."

The prince breathed before asking:

"Could you walk with me... please?"

"Sure, of course."

The young man joined Charles, and they started walking through the gardens.

"I don't know how it happened... I should have known that she favored that Parker-Bowles over me! But I still clung to the last straw of hope until I heard of their engagement!"

"I'm sorry for your heartbreak, Charles. But that was another life lesson, even though it hurts..."

The Prince of Wales sadly sighed.

"And as if it was not painful enough, Mother still pressures me to find a suitable bride... Even Father worried about it!"

"You are only 25 years old: you will find her, I feel it!"

"If only my dear parents were as optimistic as you, Piero. But no, they repeated all day long that Father married Mother when he was my age, and I'm exhausted hearing it all the time!"

"What does your grandmother think about it?"

"She says that I should not hurry to find my future wife, because a hasty marriage would inevitably end in a disaster!"

Piero nodded.

"Your grandmother is right, Charles: if you only follow what your duties command, you will bitterly regret your decision for the rest of your life. Of course, you have to find your future Queen, but you must love her as much as she loves you!"

He saw tears forming in Charles's eyes.

"I know but... I feel like everything I do is not enough for my parents. Am I just a good for nothing?"

Instinctively, the young artist knew that he would break the etiquette... but who cares? So, he did hug Charles in a comforting embrace, gently stroking his back.

"It's okay, Charles. I am here."

The prince did not cry, but he felt relieved that someone finally comforted him, so he hugged back Piero.

"I know this is not very formal, but I thought it would help you!"

"To hell with formality! I needed someone listening to me..."

They stopped the hug and Charles stated:

"I understand why Andrew and Edward appreciated you, Mister De Angelis: your patience and your kindness are helpful for the four of us!"

Piero shrugged.

"I just... do what I think is the best for everyone!"

"And I am glad that someone like you ensures our well-being..."

The young man smiled.

"You have no idea how much I am honored to have your trust, Charles. Listen: I will talk with your parents about it, and we will sort it out!"

"Thank you, Piero."

Unbeknownst to the two men, Philip was looking at them from the window of his office. The Duke of Edinburgh smiled while seeing his lover bonding with his son: indeed, he was happy that his four children appreciated Piero. Even though neither of them is ready to tell the princes the truth about their relationship: they have to wait...

In the evening...

"Do you want your son going bonkers? Stop pressuring him about his love life!"

"But he is still unmarried! At his age..."

"Yes, yes, I know the story: at his age, you were already married to Elizabeth!"

Philip pinched the bridge of his nose: Piero and he argued about Charles's single status. His beloved artist thought that his eldest son would go down into depression because of the familial pressure.

"Piero, I understand your concern about Charles, but he knows his duties..."

"Oh, please: don't start lecturing me about duties! If you were that meticulous about duties, you would never choose to cheat on your wife!"

"Don't muddle up things, would you? She started the war!"

"Don't change the subject, would you? We are talking about your son, in case you forget it!"

Piero sighed.

"Charles believed that he felt like a failure towards you. And he can't count on his mother to dismiss his fears! For God's sake, be more supportive of your son!"

"But..."

"No buts! You have to admit that your eldest son is not your carbon copy!"

"I admitted it! But people start talking: he is unmarried, had no official girlfriends, and he prefers attending parties! Rumors are spreading all around the kingdom."

His lover gave him a dark look and said with a cold tone:

"Let me ask you this simple question, Philip of Edinburgh: what matters the most for you? The public image or the well-being of your son?"

Philip stayed silent, much to Piero's displeasure:

"Fine, I see... You know what? You have all night to think about it."

He turned his heels and walked away.

"Wait, where are you going?"

"Did you really think I will spend the rest of the night with someone who does not listen to my advice? I really want to help you, Philip, and especially because I love you. But if you don't pull your weight, there is nothing more I can do. Good night!"

As he watched his lover walking away from him, the prince stood, desperate and worried. He messed up everything with his children, and now he messed up his love affair!

Philip sighed: why everything was so complicated? But, he had to acknowledge that Piero was right: he went back to his wrong habits, once again. 

And if he wanted to save what mattered the most to him, Philip had no other choice: he had to repair his faults...

14th November 1973.

The Westminster Abbey bells happily rang in the air. Indeed, the United Kingdom celebrated the wedding of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips. A joyous day for the kingdom, and also for the royal family... Well, almost for Philip. Of course, he was so proud to walk his daughter down the aisle: what kind of father would not be happy for his child on this special day?

But what saddened the prince consort was that Piero barely talked to him since their argument about Charles. He could not blame him: the young man cared more about Charles, Anne, Andrew, and Edward than their own mother. 

As he watched his lovely Anne and Mark exchanging their vows, the prince spotted Piero, sitting near the Duchess of Gloucester. 

He knew that his wife allowed the presence of the young man at the ceremony to look after Edward, who was the page boy of his sister.

Piero was dashing in his pearl-grey suit, his white gloves, and his perfectly combed dark hair. Philip never ceased to be amazed by the angelic beauty of his lover. If only they did not argue 4 months ago, the prince would have already told the young artist how amazing he was.

But the young man was not inclined to speak with him yet, and this situation saddened Philip. 

Meanwhile, Margaret saw the two lovers with a sad smile: she hoped that this argument between Piero and Philip would not last long, as she feared it would break her brother-in-law's heart. She knew that the young Mister De Angelis was the only one for Philip, and she could not let this match made in heaven falling apart. 

Margaret smiled as she got another idea: the wedding reception will be the perfect occasion for a reconciliation...

Soon as they reached Buckingham Palace for the wedding lunch, Margaret whispered to Philip:

"Please, I know that you suffer, but talk to him!"

"I want to, but every time I look in his eyes... I only see anger and sadness. And I am the one who upset him!"

She gently patted his shoulder.

"You know what? Weddings are the best occasion to prove our love... or heal a relationship."

She winked before walking away, congratulating the newlyweds. As he thought about Maggie's musings, Philip smirked: after all, he learned to never give up what he held dear. And he would never give up on Piero... 

Later that day, as the guests were too busy dancing, gossiping, or enjoying food, the prince slipped away from the crowd and wandered in the corridors when he spotted Piero in a room, retouching his make-up. 

Smiling, Philip entered and said:

"Oh, dear: you do not need to change anything. You are already beautiful!"

Startled, the young artist stammered:

"What are you doing here?"

"We need to talk, I think.

Piero raised an eyebrow: 

"Really? About what?"

Philip closed the door behind him before answering:

"We need to talk about us. It feels like years since I hold you in my arms..."

"And why you do not hold me in your arms, precisely?"

The prince sighed.

"Because of my stubbornness, we are apart. And I regret it every second since that night. You were right from the beginning, Piero: what is the purpose of your help if I did not listen to your advice? I should have known that you're the right person since you only wanted the best for me. My words might sound hollow, but I will be grateful to you for being here when I felt alone!"

The young man sighed before looking at his royal lover with a sheepish smile:

"I had to confess: at first, I did not speak to you because I wanted to be sure you learned your lesson. But then... I took pleasure letting you stew for a moment."

Philip was shocked.

"Are you bloody kidding me?"

"Not at all. Besides... I already forgive you, my stubborn Viking!"

The prince smirked:

"And they said Arlequin is the trickster in chief... Looks like they underestimated Pierrot!"

"And you love it!"

"Oh yes!"

Piero laughed wholeheartedly. Then, he stated:

"So, you said that you missed the sensation of holding me..."

He opened his arms:

"Why don't we make up for lost time?"

Philip did not need to be asked twice and rushed into his arms, kissing him feverishly. Their hands rediscovered their bodies, every touch drawing breathed moans of pleasure from the two lovers.

"I love you, Piero."

"Ti amo, Philip."

And while the kingdom celebrated the wedding, the prince and the artist rejoiced in their reunion. 

June 1975. Balmoral Castle.

The summer went well for the royal family, and everyone appreciated the peacefulness of the Scottish countryside. For Piero, it was like discovering another place. He was amazed by the soft colors of the countryside and the calm surroundings, far from the lively Londonian life. 

To be honest, he did not expect the Queen to invite him to spend some days at Balmoral, but apparently, Edward insisted, and she accepted. How could he refuse the opportunity to be closer to his dear Philip? 

However, they both tried to be careful as he did not want to be caught by Elizabeth or the Queen Mother. 

But everything changed one day, as Elizabeth left with some of her friends for a horse-riding stroll with some of her friends, and her dear Mister Acherville.

It did not bother Philip, as he took advantage of her absence to spend some time with his dear artist. Once his wife went away, he looked for Piero until he found him in the gallery room, looking at the different pictures hanging on the walls.

Coming near to him, the prince gently held the young man from behind and said:

"Are you judging the quality of the paintings?"

"Well, I have to be honest that the painters were talented. Your wife should add your own paintings!"

"Seriously? She said it would look out of place... Besides, you are far more talented than me!"

Piero chuckled:

"You flatterer!"

"It is the truth! You're my perfect little Da Vinci!"

The young man turned around and put his arms around Philip's neck:

"And you're my handsome Saint John the Baptist with a mischievous smile!"

"You like my mischievous part of me!"

"No, I don't like it... I adore it!" chuckled Piero before kissing his lover.

Amused, the prince answered the kiss with the same passion... until they heard a collective gasp of shock!

They turned around and saw Charles, Anne, Mark, Andrew, and Edward who stood near the door, astounded and silent.

Horrified, Philip stammered:

"I... I can explain everything..."

"You better explain, yes!" said Anne with a cold tone.

Mark closed the door behind them, preventing any gossiping from the staff.

"Now that we are alone, can you explain what happens?"

"This scene does not really need an explanation..." smirked Charles.

Ashamed, the prince started to explain:

"I guess that we do not have the choice. As you have noticed, your mother and I do not have a good relationship for some years. I thought that it would improve, but she decided to spend some time with another man. I was so desperate, and I neglected you - and I am sorry for that. And then, your aunt Margaret introduced me to Piero..."

"Auntie Maggie and her plans!" snickered Andrew.

"You got the point, Andrew. And so, at the very moment I knew Piero, I felt like something changed... To be honest, I felt that I fell in love again. I would be forever grateful to Piero for everything he did for me."

"Was it your idea to hire him as Andrew and Edward's tutor?" asked Charles.

"No, it was again Margaret's idea. And I saw how you felt better since he spends time with all of you!"

"Do you plan to tell us the truth one day?" asked Andrew.

"We aspired to, but I do not want you to see me as an intruder in your family. But I can assure you that I deeply love your father as he loves me!" explained Piero.

The five young people looked at each other before Edward answered:

"You know, Mister Piero, I don't mind if you are in love with Papa. Besides, you love all of us more than Mum does. So, I am happy to have you here with us!"

"He is right: at least, you listen to us and you try to encourage us, unlike Mother!" added Andrew.

"I do not really care about my parents' affairs, as we all know that their marriage is doomed. But now, let's be honest, Piero: you made him happy, and it matters the most for us!" stated Charles with a genuine smile.

"I have to confess that this is quite unusual... But, my dear Anne has a high opinion of you, Mister De Angelis, and so am I. Don't worry, we won't tell anyone about your affair!" smiled Mark.

"You see, Father, we all support you, and we are happy to have Piero with us at Buckingham Palace. So, there is no need to worry." grinned Anne.

The two lovers sighed with relief: at least, they accepted their relationship. 

"Thank you very much!" breathed Philip with a slight smile.

"You're welcome, Father. But, the next time you want to show Piero your affection... Try being discreet!" laughed Andrew.

"He takes that from you, dear!" chuckled Piero.

"I guess so..." sighed Philip, even if he could not help smiling.

It looked like, after all, that they gained new allies... 

27 August 1979.

In his house, Piero was dozing on his couch, reading a collection of poetry works by Oscar Wilde while he listened to some trendy music on the radio.

Suddenly, he heard the voice of a journalist interrupting the music:

"Ladies and gentleman, we interrupt our program as dreadful news has just been released by Buckingham Palace: today, Lord Louis Mountbatten, Admiral of the Fleet and former Viceroy of India, has been killed by a bomb planted aboard his fishing boat while he was spending his holiday with his family in his summer home in Mullaghmore, in the north-west of Ireland. 

We deplored also the tragic loss of his grandson Nicholas Knatchbull and Paul Maxwell, a young local crew member. The remaining people present on the boat when the attack happened, suffered from serious injuries and were transported to the closest hospital..."

Piero dropped his book, troubled: it could not be! He rushed to his phone and dialed Philip's number. After a few seconds, he heard his lover's voice:

"**Hello?**"

"Philip, it's me! I have just heard about your uncle! Is that true?"

The slight sobbing on the other side of the phone answered his question:

"**They... They murdered him, Piero! They killed him! And they took his grandson's life! How dared they?**"

"I am terribly sorry for your loss, my love. I know how much he was a loved one to you..."

After all, Louis Mountbatten was not only the uncle of Philip: he was his paternal figure, a role model he praised so many times. Piero could not imagine how his lover suffered from this tragic loss.

"My condolences, amore mio. You are in my prayers, you and your family. I hope that the injured will recover soon."

"I hope so... Thank you for your call."

"You're welcome. How are the children?"

"Charles is deeply upset, Anne is crying, Andrew cannot believe it, and Edward tried to cope with this tragedy."

"I imagine... Don't hesitate to comfort them."

"I will... I am sorry, but I have to quit: Elizabeth required my help to organize the funeral. I'll call you later."

"Don't worry, it's fine. See you later, my love."

"See you later, angelo mio!"

As he hung up, Piero felt bad for Philip: his lover endured so many hardships in his life that the young man wondered if he can handle this new tragedy... 

5th September 1979.

Sitting in his living-room, Peter watched the funeral of Louis Mountbatten on television. He watched the royal family, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her husband Denis, and some major figures of the kingdom attending the obsequies, all dressed in black and showing a sad expression on their faces. 

The young man wished he could attend the funeral, just to be here for Philip and comforting him. But it was the mourning of a family, and he did not belong to this family...

Later that day, he heard a knock on his door.

"I don't remember to entertain someone today..." muttered Piero as he opened the door.

Much to his surprise, Philip stood there.

"Philip? But what are you doing here?"

"I needed to see you... Because I have something to tell you. May I come in?"

"Of course!"

The young man stepped aside and let the prince enter the house. Then, he closed the door behind him and asked:

"Do you want something to drink?"

"No, thank you."

"Alright. May I know what are doing here?"

He noticed that Philip held a large box under his arm.

"Hm, what is this?"

The duke sighed before explaining:

"Since the murder of my uncle, I thought about everything that happened in my life, both good and bad memories. And then, I thought about us, and I realize how important you are to me since we started our relationship. I wish I had met you sooner, but there we are. This tragedy casts light on the most significant person in my life: you."

He opened the box, revealing a golden crown before he put the ornament at Piero's feet. Then, he gets on one knee and said:

"You deserve everything, Piero. And moreover, you would be a wonderful consort. That's why I wanted to put a crown at your feet..."

"Wait for a second: it looks like a proposal... But you are already married!"

"I know, I know. I cannot divorce Elizabeth, and I think you understand that. But it is my way to say that I will belong to you, and you only for the rest of my life. And I wanted to know if you feel the same..."

Piero nervously chuckled.

"Oh Lord, that was unexpected!"

He kneeled near Philip and replied:

"I won't ask you to nullify your marriage, because I know what are the consequences. But I am moved by your gesture, and if you want to know, I will never look at someone else the way I am looking at you. I love you, Philip Mountbatten, and it won't change..."

"I love you too, Piero De Angelis." smiled Philip, relieved, before he kissed Piero.

As they tightly held each other, the two lovers felt like the sadness was less oppressive. They had the impression that nothing could tear them apart and they will surpass everything together.

October 1979.

"So, tell me more about this charming girl. What is her name, already?"

"Her name is Diana. Diana Spencer."

"What a lovely name! Is she the daughter of Count John Spencer?"

"Exactly."

Walking through the halls of Buckingham Palace, Charles and Piero were talking about the Crown Prince's new girlfriend, the young Diana Spencer.

"I know that you're dating her for perhaps one month, but how is your relationship?"

"Quite good, to be honest. She is calm, smiling, quite smart... Of course, she had different hobbies than mine but... I guess it's alright."

"I would like to meet her. I can invite both of you to my place if you want."

"It would be a pleasure."

A servant arrived.

"Mister De Angelis."

"Yes?"

"Her Majesty The Queen requires your presence in her office. If you please follow me..."

Piero was intrigued: why would the Queen want to see him?

"Alright, I arrive. See you later, your Highness."

"See you later, Mister De Angelis."

Piero followed the servant until they arrived in front of the door. The man knocked at the door before he announced:

"Mister De Angelis, Your Majesty."

"Perfect, George. Good afternoon, Mister De Angelis."

"Your Majesty," replied Piero.

The servant left the room. 

The young man politely said:

"Your Majesty, I renew my condolences after the tragic loss of Lord Mountbatten... I shall say that I share your pain."

The Queen answered in a neutral tone:

"Thank you for your consideration, Mister De Angelis. However, the pain is not the only thing we share..."

Puzzled, Piero asked:

"May I know what are you talking about?"

She looked at him with contempt:

"Don't you dare think I am a fool, Mister De Angelis? I have learned that you have an affair with my husband!"

Piero stared in amazement: how could she know about it? He was sure none of the children told their mother, neither Margaret nor Philip. So, it must be a servant...

"I am astounded by such accusations, Your Majesty. Your husband and I have only cordial relationships, and that's all!"

"Stop spreading your lies. I know that you are the mysterious person my husband comes to see almost every day."

She came closer to him and snarled:

"I gave you my trust, I even left my children with you, and this is how you thanked me?"

Usually, the young artist would have lowered his head and being ashamed. But this time, he stared defiantly at her and said with a cold tone: 

"Maybe I would be the rudest man in your kingdom, Your Majesty, but I can't stand such hypocrisy. Especially when it comes from someone who hurt her children and cheated on her devoted husband..."

"How dare you?!"

"I can ask you the same. You did not expect that I knew your dirty little secrets, am I right? After all, your lover was not really careful: he put his latest love letter in my office. What a big mistake!"

He restrained himself from smiling as he saw Elizabeth grew pale.

"But, I am a gentleman: I won't tell the media about your romance if you let us alone. Otherwise, the entire Commonwealth will hear about his adulterous Queen..."

"You have some nerve to threaten me as you do, Mister De Angelis..."

"I don't threaten, I warn: this is all the difference. After all, you would not have hesitated to destroy my life. Let's say that we are on equal terms for now..."

Suddenly, Philip and Margaret burst through the door.

"Ah, right in time, Philip. I have just tell Mister De Angelis that I knew about your affair."

As Philip was shocked, Margaret raised an eyebrow.

"And then? It's not like Philip was the only guilty!"

"You were supposed to support me, not to defy me!" snapped Elizabeth.

"How am I supposed to do that, as you enjoy belittle all your family members - it is a miracle that Mother is the only exception. And you deserve what happened..."

"Should I understand that you are behind this?"

"Absolutely, and I won't regret anything I did! And I am so glad that Philip has someone who did what you are supposed to do!"

The Queen fumed as she understood that her sister and her husband joined forces against her.

Philip added:

"You see, Elizabeth: you throw me away, but I won't running after you anymore. I finally find love again, and if you dare to mess up everything, I would not mind telling your friends about your relationship with Acherville."

Seething, Elizabeth raised her head in an arrogant gesture and declared:

"That is not going to happen for long, Philip. You know where your place is, and you will give this entertainer up!"

"I don't think so, dear wife. I am not the one who gives up so easily..."

He smirked.

"Now that you know everything, shall we leave you?"

"You're dismissed. Now, go!" she replied with a short tone.

The trio left the room, a relieved smile on their faces. However, they won't drop their guard, as they knew how embittered Elizabeth can be.

But it looked like she lost the war. Now, it was Philip and Piero's turn to conquer Buckingham Palace... 

To be continued...

N.B: This request is written like an AU and changed many things from the characters to the events. 

Please be kind and comprehensive and don’t snap about it!

Anyway, I hope you liked the story and I am waiting for your requests.

See you soon! 😘😷😍🥰💖

[myhamartiaishubris]

Xiao Xingchen is a tragic hero

Spoilers for episodes 38 and 39 of The Untamed.

The Yi City arc is a Greek tragedy and Xiao Xingchen is the tragic hero. Allow me to explain: the plot of a Greek tragedy, according to Aristotle’s Poetics, can be roughly broken down into the exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, and resolution. The exposition should have the effects stressed more than the cause, and the resolution vice versa. Around the climax, there is generally peripeteia (reversal) and anagnorisis (realization). The plot should evoke pity and/or fear, and the resolution should include catharsis, a purging of those negative feelings for the benefit of the audience.

Now let’s look at the Yi City arc. 

The exposition is quite simple: A’Jing is a homeless girl who pretends to be blind; Xiao Xingchen has somehow become blind; Xue Yang is injured due to being chased by the authorities. (Although we later learn causes for the latter two, they are not stressed as much as the effects.)

The inciting moment is equally simple: A’Jing meets Xingchen. You could argue that the inciting incident stretches to the moment they save Xue Yang, but that’s all semantics by this point.

The rising action is, of course, the story that follows. A’Jing becomes suspicious of Xue Yang but can’t do anything about it. Xue Yang follows Xingchen around and they build rapport because Xingchen doesn’t know who Xue Yang is. (Now’s as good a time as any to mention that dramatic irony, another element of Greek tragedy, is very heavily used in this story.) Xingchen kills “evil spirits” and whatnot as the audience gains a greater sense of trepidation. Finally, Song Lan comes knocking and confronts Xue Yang.

The peripeteia can be said to be the moment when Xingchen stabs Song Lan. It could also be argued that this moment happens when Xingchen discovers Xue Yang’s identity. Either way, this is when things go from mildly concerning to absolutely terrible.

The anagnorisis, of course, comes when Xue Yang reveals that Xingchen has been killing humans all along and when he realizes Song Lan has been there this entire time. Now, rather than fear, the audience feels a degree of pity for Xingchen, Song Lan, A’Jing, and maybe even Xue Yang.

The falling action and resolution come after Xingchen kills himself and Xue Yang fails to revive him. The catharsis comes in two parts: the first when Song Lan kills Xue Yang, and the second when Song Lan walks off with Shuanghua and we see Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen walking side by side, ending on a hopeful note. The effect is unclear and unstressed by the narrative, while the cause is stressed.

Now let’s talk about our tragic hero. The tragic hero should have a hamartia, which can be translated as either mistake or fatal flaw. The mistake, of course, is Xingchen killing innocent people and ultimately his best friend (how Song Lan survives is kind of handwaved but let’s not get into that). The fatal flaw is that Xingchen is too kind, too trusting. We see this most notably when Xingchen accepts Xue Yang into their fold unquestioningly. On a lesser degree, we see this when Xingchen doesn’t express the slightest suspicion when A’Jing claims to be blind, despite essentially calling him “Big Brother White Robes.” Perhaps most significantly, we see this in his blind faith in Shuanghua, which causes him to commit a series of crimes so grave even he can’t forgive himself.

Finally, let’s look at his suicide. According to Plato, suicide is impermissible except in four cases: 

1. One’s mind is morally corrupted and one’s character can therefore not be salvaged 

2. The self-killing is done as a result of a judicial order (as was Socrates’ death)

3. The self-killing is done because of extreme and inevitable misfortune 

4. The self-killing results from shame at having participated in grossly unjust actions.

Xingchen satisfies practically all of these cases. The first is a bit of a stretch, but you could argue that he feels he has been morally corrupted. The second is also vaguely applicable: he kills himself because he attempted to uphold righteousness but failed. His action is most certainly a result of extreme misfortune (whether or not it is inevitable is debatable, but a case can be made). And, of course, he does it out of shame from killing innocent people, which definitely qualifies as a grossly unjust action.

(Also, you can’t tell me that a person punishing himself for doing something he thought was right but was actually morally reprehensible doesn’t feel just a tiny bit Oedipal to you.)

tldr The Yi City arc satisfies the structure of a Greek tragedy as delineated by Aristotle and Xiao Xingchen has all the makings of a tragic hero.

[prolapsarian]

The Language of Boris: Week 1

"Golden Age” On 25 July 2019, Johnson set out his plans in his statement on priorities for the government. The conceit of his speech was to shuttle between the pragmatics of policy and governance, via panegyrics to optimism and a can-do attitude, to an image of Great Britain in 2050. This is the date when, according to current plans, the UK’s net carbon emissions will be reduced to zero. His speech closed,

There is every chance that in 2050, When I fully intend to be around, though not necessarily in this job we will look back on this period, this extraordinary period, as the beginning of a new golden age for our United Kingdom.

The irony is lost on Johnson: that the image of a “golden age” has always furnished societies that see themselves in decline. The golden age is an image projected back from the wreckage of a fallen, broken world. And so just as Johnson elevates his moment of election, he presages the catastrophe to come. Brecht knew this irony best: during the finale of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, as the city of cartels and rackets collapses, as crooks escape and the innocent are damned by a drunken God, there enters a crowd. The people stomp out a herald of a new authoritarian order, bearing placards: “FOR THE EXPROPRIATION OF OTHERS”; “FOR LOVE”; “FOR THE VENALITY OF LOVE”; “FOR PROPERTY”; “FOR THEFT”; FOR THE WAR OF ALL AGAINST ALL”; “FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE RICH”; “FOR COURAGE IN THE FACE OF THE WEAK”; “FOR THE ENDURANCE OF THE GOLDEN AGE.”

Perhaps Johnson evokes something more everyday though. This is a golden age of a golden man: fair in complexion, with a signature head of blazing yellow hair. The Sun adopts the line: its front page headline reads “JOHNSUN” depicting the new prime minister as the face of the sun, like the baby from the Teletubbies, beaming across the sky on the hottest day of the year. The opportunity to reiterate the paper’s title, to prove that it is their prime minister, is not missed. It was the oldest image of a golden age, that given by Hesiod in the Works and Days, that described it as time of in which a race of golden people lived. But by the time of Plato such an anatomic image had become untenable. In the Cratylus dialogue, Socrates argued that those who lived in the golden age were not described as as a golden race because they were truly golden in visage, but because they were good and fine. Johnson, openly deceitful and ignoble, machiavellian and brutish, could never be described as good and fine, nor wise and knowing, as Socrates continues. So roll back Plato and Socrates, back to the older racial implication, where blond hair and a fair face are the guarantors of righteousness and a world of plenty. 

“Talent” “We will also ensure that we continue to attract the brightest and best talent from around the world”: To describe a person or a set of people as “talent” has a very specific set of meanings in British English. It is not the same as describing someone as talented, or saying that they have talent, or even that they have a particular talent. Calling someone “talent” is part of a grammatical formation peculiar to the dialects of the highest upper classes (perhaps the only other word that suffers this fate is “wit”, invoked only by one upper class person convivially describing another.) The grammar involves a ricochet, firstly from a human attribute to an abstract noun, and then back as a concretion, in which this “talent” describes the whole of a person. Perhaps this motion is why describing people as “talent” has a sexual aspect too, especially when uttered in the plummy accents of the ruling classes. “Talent” means people with prominent sexual features. But we know that it isn’t the protuberances that the ruling classes love; instead what excites their libidos is the abstraction. Not least when the very notion of “talent” is designed to discover such an abstraction as naturally embedded within the body of the person thus described. “Recovery”

“to recover our natural and historic role as an enterprising, outward-looking and truly global Britain, generous in temper and engaged with the world”: It used to be said that the sun never sets on the British Empire. 35 years since its end, nearly half of the British population remains proud of British colonialism, from the slave trade to Bengal Famine, while less than a quarter regret this history. No wonder then that Boris could help but fantasise its restoration, with every brutality recast as generosity. Such is the British character.

[booksfornamjoon]

The literary sources of BTS’ “Singularity” (Part II)

Chapter II: Oedipus Rex, the blind who had eyes

* This is a personal and purely philological analysis, that is, centred on the study of literature and/or the language as used in literature.

* This post was originally written in Spanish and translated into English, sorry if there are any errors.

* You can check part I --Narcissus and the problem of self-identity--, here.

* Also, you can check my in-depth analysis of Singularity lyrics here.

As we established in the first part of the analysis, one of the main literary sources of "Singularity" is the classic myth of Narcissus, established in Western culture through the Metamorphosis by Ovid. Remember that Narcissus, the son of a nymph and a god, ends up so enamoured with his reflection that he ends up falling into the water where his beautiful face appears, dying because of his own vanity. We affirmed that in one of the versions of the myth, the mother of Narcissus, the nymph Liriope, decides to visit Tiresias (in ancient Greek, Τειρεσίας), one of the most famous soothsayers of Greek mythology. This character, present as a prophet in all Greek tragedies related to the founding of the city of Thebes --one of the most important social nuclei of ancient Greece-- is not only considered the mediator between gods and humans but between men and women --by its androgynous nature. and between life and death.

[Tiresias appears in front of Odysseus during the sacrifice, Heinrich Füssli (1780-85)]

One of the main tragedies, and the one that will centre this second part, is Oedipus Rex (Oι̉δίπoυς τύραννoς), a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles in an unknown date (it is believed that it was composed around 430 BC). Broadly speaking, the work begins during the mandate of Oedipus, king of Thebes and husband of Jocasta. His glorious reign is dying by an aggressive epidemic of plague and he orders his brother-in-law Creon to depart for the Oracle of Delphi (a sacred temple dedicated to Apollo, built in the Villa of Delphi, Greece). 

The prediction is clear: the plague is a divine punishment because the death of Laius, the previous king, has not been avenged and it will not disappear until the guilty party is killed or sent into exile. After this, Oedipus collaborates arduously to discover the culprit -- to who promises to save his life and only punish him/her with exile--, relying on his citizens and the close members of his family. It is precisely Creon who introduces the character of Tiresias since he advises the monarch to come to him to solve the problem.

OEDIPUS: Teiresias, you who understand all things—what can be taught and what cannot be spoken of, what goes on in heaven and here on the earth—you know, although you cannot see, how sick our state is. And so we find in you alone, great seer,  our shield and saviour. 

We must bear in mind that Tiresias, who appears in this work as a character already known from other mythological cycles --Greek tragedies were represented in the amphitheatres and used to use dynasties of characters that all the public knew-- is a blind fortune-teller. When he arrives in Thebes, he refuses to declare what he knows, even though he was present at the time of Laius' murder, and he and Oedipus confront each other in a heated conversation. Irritated, Tiresias declares that Oedipus is the murderer that Oedipus himself is searching for and insinuates him that he lives in incest with his mother, with whom he has had children, he is not the Theban as he believes and that, shortly, he will be blind like him. Faced with such accusations, Oedipus does not believe him and thinks that the fortune-teller has conspired with Creon to snatch his throne.

TEIRESIAS: I say that with your dearest family, unknown to you, you are living in disgrace.  You have no idea how bad things are.

OEDIPUS: Do you really think you can just speak out, say things like this, and still remain unpunished?

TEIRESIAS: Yes, I can, if the truth has any strength.

OEDIPUS: It does, but not for you. Truth is not in you— for your ears, your mind, your eyes are blind!

TEIRESIAS: You are a wretched fool to use harsh words which all men soon enough will use to curse you.

TEIRESIAS: You may be king, but I have the right to answer you—and I control that right, for I am not your slave. I serve Apollo, and thus will never stand with Creon, signed up as his man. So I say this to you, since you have chosen to insult my blindness— you have your eyesight, and you do not see.

Since the tragedy is extensive, I will try to explain the argument briefly. Finally, Oedipus, who was actually the heir of the kings of Corinth, left his city because of an oracle that proclaimed that he would kill his father and marry his mother. He wanted to avoid the tragedy of his destiny and fled. During the way, he's entangled in a brawl in which he assassinates several people ..., one of them turns out to be Laius. With the intervention of several witnesses, it is known that Oedipus was not the biological son of the kings of Corinth since he had been abandoned on a mountain shortly after being born and saved by a messenger from the kingdom of Corinth. Little by little, Jocasta, his wife, realizes the truth: Oedipus is the son that she and Laius abandoned to their fate so that a fateful oracle would not be fulfilled, unaware that the messenger had managed to save him. Oedipus, oblivious to his true identity, had become a brave citizen of Thebes and, after overcoming the enigma of the Sphinx, took the throne. Married to his mother and having killed his real father, Oedipus stabs his eyes, not wanting to see the tragedy of his existence, and asks for an exile with his two daughters, which marks the end of the story.

OEDIPUS: But the hand which stabbed out my eyes was mine alone. In my wretched life, why should I have eyes  when nothing I could see would bring me joy?

[Oedipus Rex, film adaptation by Pier Paolo Passolini (1967)]

In summary, we can see that Tiresias is the only one, by being ironically blind, who can see the truth in a world full of people who have eyes but cannot see. He's the famous prophet whose true revelation is not accepted when he twice proclaims it. The originality of Sophocles lies in this irony (especially taking into account that Tiresias appears at the beginning of the tragedy), in the belief that the knowledge of the human being is not a simple objective fact that is imposed on us, but a subjective possession before the one we can react belligerently, as a possession that partly needs to be possessed by the one who receives it to become effective. That is why Oedipus rebels against the truth, because he believes more in him than in the gods.

A fatal love, the intervention of a vengeful divinity or the problematization of sight are common themes between the myth of Narcissus, Oedipus Rex and Singularity. If we stop a bit in the lyrics, we can extract some examples:

A sound of something breaking I awake from sleep

We have the fracture, the rupture of the individual once he realizes he's wearing a mask, he's blind.

I dumped myself into the lake I buried my voice for you Over the winter lake I was thrown

The lake, an obvious reference to Narcissus and his death. On the other hand, the second verse talks about a certain culprit (that’s why he says 'for you’ or uses passive verbs that exempt him from responsibility: 'I was thrown’), like if he was even talking to a god, maybe to a woman (that's the simplest interpretation). However, he's talking to himself. He's the culprit of his blindness like Oedipus is.

In addition, another interesting aspect is the last speech of the tragedy. This is said by the chorus, a collective character who comments and judges what happens in the tragedy and represents the Theban citizen, the public. I could not help thinking about the dancers of the video.

CHORUS: You residents of Thebes, our native land,  look on this man, this Oedipus, the one  who understood that celebrated riddle.  He was the most powerful of men.  All citizens who witnessed this man’s wealth  were envious. Now what a surging tide  of terrible disaster sweeps around him.  So while we wait to see that final day,   we cannot call a mortal being happy   before he’s passed beyond life free from pain.

Also, BTS tends to distort the figure of the idol, that is, the famous singer who is seen as a deity and not as a human being. Oedipus, like Taehyung, is seen by the public as a king, as a divine emissary, but eventually ends up being as mundane as the spectators. He suffers, he has doubts and, sometimes, he doesn't love himself either.

Lastly (I KNOW THAT I AM WRITING A LOT), among the main themes of this fabulous work of universal literature, we must talk about the problem of the search for truth and the risks and harms involved in achieving knowledge. Nietzsche speaks of this drama in the 9th chapter of the Birth of Tragedy (1871-1872). The main thesis of this book states that art is based on two fundamental notions that the Greeks of the archaic era and the classical era, ie, the Greeks prior to Socrates, knew: the two fundamental impulses of nature that are symbolized by two Greek gods, Dionysus and Apollo. 

Apollo and Dionysus symbolize two physiological states of the human being: sleepiness and drunkenness; as well as two vital impulses: the individuation (JUNG'S INDIVIDUATION PROCESS!!!!!) and the overflow. Broadly speaking, Nietzsche makes use of the deities to highlight the human condition in its strictest sense and, in turn, unveil the struggle or opposition of forces that hide in the bosom of nature. Apollo symbolizes the veil (the beautiful forms/artistic creations that adorn life and justify it) and Dionysus symbolizes suffering, death, truth..., the tragic wisdom, that is, the terrible awareness of the finitude of Men and his suffering existence. Nietzsche states that the hypertrophy of some of the elements could be harmful to man, an excess of veil could lead to optimism and rationalism, and an excess of truth could lead to suicide or asceticism. Both elements are necessary so that life can be kept in balance.

To end, Nietzsche presents Oedipus as a transgressor, a hero condemned to fall for having tried to go too far. By transgressing nature and social norms, and wanting to find out what is forbidden, Oedipus discovers a world whose vision is forbidden to the rest of mortals. He commits a masculine, heroic version of original sin by choosing to eat from the tree of knowledge that condemns humanity to abandon innocence. In this case, it is his curiosity and his integrity that encourages him to investigate. That abandonment of innocence, of comfortable ignorance, is the cruel and heroic destiny of Oedipus, and his deed consists in his sacrifice (LIKE IT HAPPENS IN 'DEMIAN'!!!). Searching in ourselves, inquiring into our motives and wounds, has a price, it leads to a rupture of the individual necessary for the rebirth of the being.

Thus the man who is responsive to artistic stimuli reacts to the reality of dreams as does the philosopher to the reality of existence; he observes closely, and he enjoys his observation: for it is out of these images that he interprets life, out of these processes that he trains himself for life. It is not only pleasant and agreeable images that he experiences with such universal understanding: the serious, the gloomy, the sad and the profound, the sudden restraints, the mockeries of chance, fearful expectations, in short the whole 'divine comedy' of life, the Inferno included, passes before him, not only as a shadow-play — for he too lives and suffers through these scenes — and yet also not without that fleeting sense of illusion; and perhaps many, like myself, can remember calling out to themselves in encouragement, amid the perils and terrors of the dream, and with success: 'It is a dream! I want to dream on!' Just as I have often been told of people who have been able to continue one and the same dream over three and more successive nights: facts which clearly show that our innermost being, our common foundation, experiences dreams with profound pleasure and joyful necessity (Nietzsche, The Birth of the Tragedy).

I hope you liked this and found it interesting and easy to read. I’m working in the next chapters, which will talk, among many things, about these works/characters/topics:

Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818): A man can create his own monster

Wuthering Heights (Emily Brönte, 1847): Narcissus and Heathcliff

Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brönte, 1847): Understanding the Double - Jane Eyre and Bertha Mason

Alice Through the Looking-Glass (Lewis Carroll, 1871): The mirror symbolism

Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson, 1886): Evil in a reflected identity

The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde, 1890): Self-image and ego

Dracula (Bram Stocker, 1897): Innate evil without a reflection

Peter Pan (James Matthew Barrie, 1904): Seeking for a reflection in the absence of shadows

Ophelia (from Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, 1603): Madness, water and suicide

From the myth to contemporaneity: how to codify identity and body in the information age

[dasklaus]

I don't like Plato

For a student of Philosophy, that is an embarrassing thing to say and one that will leave you alienated among your peers and superiors. Even those who disagree with Plato (and many do), it is usually accompanied by awe and respect, and a desire to read more Plato to understand where he went wrong, or how his ideas shaped history and our intellectual world today. Plato's writing was influential on a scale that is impossible to replicate in an age of almost universal literacy, organized education and an overabundance of literature and text books.

Plato lived at a time when formal education did not exist. There were teachers, yes, but they were not adhering to a syllabus, there was no real distinction among the sciences or even what constituted science. Writing was only just starting seeing widespread adoption in Greece. Oral history, memorization of poems (most notably Homer's) was still the primary way of transmitting information. Schools existed in the "school of thought" way, in that they each taught their own thing, mostly through discussion.

Plato's dialogues try to replicate that way of learning, and Plato himself discusses the shortcomings of text as a didactic tool in his Phaedrus. From most of his predecessors (and many of his successors) only fragments survive, a lot (most notably Socrates, who features prominently in Plato's writing) never wrote down anything at all. There's a certain irony in Plato's certainty that writing encourages forgetfulness, as people turn to rely on letters instead of their brains, and his popularity being founded in catering to exactly that, by writing so much down. His influence lies not only in being part of the intellectual history, but also by being re-discovered through his texts over and over again. He didn't just shape the thought of people during his time, and laying foundations for others to build on, but his foundation, through reading the original texts, gets re-incorporated into the building again and again.

Plato got lucky. All of his writings that we know of can still be read in full today. They use a language still being taught today, and have been translated over and over. His style of writing, the dialogue form, allows for clarifications and refined definitions, requiring less interpretation and guess-work in understanding him. Even so, there are countless ways of reading Plato, and many disagreements among scholars. Other schools of thought of his time (and before, and after) require detective work, piecing together fragments cited by others, comparing secondary sources to reach a reasonably guess to the original ideas.

These circumstances have no bearing on the validity or quality of his ideas. Plato was just one of many people walking the earth during the classical history, his school one of many, and Greece just one part of a much larger world. The world population has exploded since then, so this has only gotten worse. What are the chances he was actually the smartest, his ideas the best to base so much on?

In truth, we read Plato because everyone reads Plato, and everyone has read Plato before. His accessibility through his texts is what truly sets him apart, and caused his huge impact. To understand the history of philosophical thought requires to understand Plato (and many others, in all fairness). It's a circular dependency, a wheel of "Plato is important" that can't be broken because his place is cemented in so much else. If we were to delete his writings, they would still seep through in all the ways they've become part of other people's writing and thought.

In a world of several billions of people, Plato is a drop in the ocean. His ideas were shaped by mostly-forgotten predecessors, by his circumstances which are mostly foreign to us, and by the lack of availability of empirical data. Were he born today (a thought experiment that's admittedly already flawed in its premise) he'd probably reach vastly different conclusions about the world.

Here's where I really hate Plato: I don't get a chance to start from scratch. Everything's steeped in theory, there's no "pure" data, and so the basic premises shape what information becomes available, what conclusions reachable. The importance of proliferation of theories, of disagreement, of plurality of thought is well-known. Trying to wrap my head around Plato takes me further away from my own perspective. Just to find out where or how I disagree with them changes my premises, because I need to make use of his concepts and ideas, "speak his language" to grapple with him. I can feel myself losing my own words.

That is not to say Plato shouldn't be read. I just have the arrogant feeling I have ideas of my own that I want the chance to explore, and the more time I have to spend on history, on Plato, on the specific boundaries his worldview imposes, the less I become able to surpass them. Few people today are actual Platonists - it's not that agreement with him is in any way widespread. But many are operating within the constraints of a platonist framework, defining their views in relation to his ideas. No single man should hold that power. Maybe my hate of Plato is, in its core, anarchist.

[justforbooks]

A traffic jam when you’re already late.

A free ride when you’ve already paid.

The fact that the King James Bible is the most shoplifted book in the United States.

One of these three things is an example of irony—the reversal of what is expected or intended. The other two (no offense to Alanis Morissette) are not. The difference between them may be one of the most rage-inducing linguistic misunderstandings you’re likely to read about on the Internet or hear about from the determined grammar nerds in your life. 'Ironic' does not, technically, mean 'unfortunate,' 'interesting,' or 'coincidental,' despite these terms often being used interchangeably. And that frequent misuse has not escaped linguists; according to the editors at Dictionary.com, 'We submit that ironic might be the most abused word in the English language.'

That’s a tough claim to prove, but it’s clear that confusion over the definition of irony is persistent, and decades old. 'Irony' makes Harvard linguist Steven Pinker’s list of the 58 most commonly misused words in English, and ranks in the top 1 percent of all word lookups on Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary. Even Great Gatsby author F. Scott Fitzgerald got it wrong, some say, when he claimed in 1939, 'It is an ironic thought that the last picture job I took yielded me five thousand dollars five hundred and cost over four thousand in medical attention.” That’s not ironic, but these 25 funny examples of irony in real life are.

So what does irony mean, really, and where does the confusion come from? Part of the ambiguity probably stems from the fact that there are no fewer than three definitions of irony depending on which dictionary you use. There’s Socratic irony (an ancient rhetorical move), and dramatic irony (an ancient theatrical move), but the definition of irony we care about—and the kind that’s most bitterly debated—is situational irony. Situational irony occurs when, as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it, 'a state of affairs or an event… seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result.' If you’re still confused, just use this special irony punctuation mark and call it a day. 

The trick, according to purists, is the deliberately contrary part—for a situation to be ironic, it must be the opposite of what is expected, not merely an amusing coincidence. A traffic jam when you’re already late may be an undesirable coincidence, but it is not the opposite outcome one would expect when leaving for work late (especially if that person lives in a major city). In an article titled Lines From Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic,” Modified to Actually Make them Ironic, College Humor writer Patrick Cassels corrects the situation like this: 'A traffic jam when you’re already late… to receive an award from the Municipal Planning Board for reducing the city’s automobile congestion 80 percent.' Now that’s irony.

Not every linguist goes by this limited view, though. Ever the champions of fluid language growth, Merriam Websterargues that Mr. Fitzgerald, Ms. Morissette, and anyone else who uses 'ironic' to mean 'coincidental' isn’t actually wrong, but is actually just trailblazing. 'The word irony has come to be applied to events that are merely curious or coincidental,' the editors write, 'and while some feel this is an incorrect use of the word, it is merely a new one.' Now isn’t that ironic something?

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[porcileorg]

Karte / Map

Author: Berthold Reiß, 2017.

The original text (in German) appears in the collected writings of Berthold Reiß – Antinomia. Gesammelte Schriften 1989-2019. Published by Monika Bayer-Wermuth and Daniela Stöppel (Kunstraum München, 2020).

Text contribution for The Happy Fainting of Painting #2 – Galerie Krobath, Vienna, September 15-October 14, 2017.

"What gives space reality [Realitet] is the organic process of nature; what gives time reality is the plenitude of history." This sentence is a footnote, so not quite in the text. In 1841, Søren Kierkegaard wrote this text The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates as a dissertation. The talk of space and time, of the organic process, which is visible, and of history, which promises not only hardship but also abundance, seems arabesque in that it tries to show as such both field and sequence. It explains a synthesis that does not appear as a conclusion in Plato's dialogues, but as a myth or a metaphor. The synthesis is validly represented "[w]hen the metaphor* finally acquires such dimensions that all existence becomes visible in it."

Kierkegaard finds the same synthesis in the thing-in-itself. And he finds it represented differently when Kant tries to get hold of it. He can really grasp it as a taboo, in his whole view of "radical evil."** And he can give it up to irony: "since grasping it was impossible, then [he] had the obviously great advantage, the rather ironic good fortune, of always hoping." Apocalyptic terror is serious, while hope is ironic. The map is a form in which this relationship does not appear as psychological, but contingent and at the same time geometrical. And it is coincidence, but also necessary, that this form can be so different that one map of the same shows the opposite of another.

The modern era still suggests that the same beginning can be made all over the world. In 1781, Immanuel Kant in Königsberg uses the identical preface for the Critique of Pure Reason that Francis Bacon used in London for his Instauratio Magna of 1620, which states that "not to imagine and construe my Instauration as something [unending or] infinite and suprahuman, when it is in fact unending error's end and proper boundary." Apparently, it is about a joint project. People should "in their own interest, [give up the rivalries and prejudices regarding opinions and] be mindful of the common good; [and that] they themselves, [being now freed and protected by the safeguards and aids I have provided against errors and impediments in the methods,] also take part [in the tasks that remain]."

Only a picture that Kant draws with words reveals that one conclusion is not always legitimate next to the other. "Instauratio Magna" means 'the great instauration.' On the frontispiece [engraved cover] we see ships moving in front of a horizon and the whole view framed on the left and right by mighty pillars. These pillars are mentioned in the Critique of Pure Reason when it describes a "determination of reason’s bounds," that "is carried out according to secure principles, and that affixes with utmost reliability its nihil ulterius*** to the Pillars of Hercules." The image that appears in copper for Bacon and in words for Kant is less artistic than mythical. For Kierkegaard, the mythical consists of the fact that it also overwhelms the one who employs it: Hence the Pillars of Hercules can steer Bacon and Kant in opposite directions. Bacon writes under the image, "Many will travel and knowledge will be increased" The outlook and pull-out [Ausblick und Ausfahrt] are like an outward extension [Ausgriff]. This is what lies outside the ancient map, described as hic sunt leones, hic sunt dragones [here be lions, here be dragons]. On the other hand, the myth of the Critique of Pure Reason probably consists in restoring the complete vision [Anblick] of the world. The rightful conclusion must also be seen.

The Pillars of Hercules, which the ancient imagination placed on the left and right of the Strait of Gibraltar, mark the border of the world. In what Plato calls 'idea,' their sight is at the same time a view. "Wisdom is power," the famous phrase by Francis Bacon on the other hand seems to lead behind the horizon as behind the light.**** But does Kant only see the limits of growth? Is science evil? The insight that wisdom is power is deepened and expanded when the idea returns as a prototype.

Kant speaks of "reason [that] sets limits to a freedom that in itself is lawless." One can assume that this act of reason follows a principle. But it is certain that he first sets out, indeed discovers, this principle. If the sun stands for the idea of the good, then this picture can connect sight and view better than principle and action. These belong rather to technology or to politics. However, it is noticeable that Kant describes them geographically. It is known that Kant lectured on geography. But Kant likewise has in mind a "land of pure understanding." He says that he "not only traveled throughout the land of pure understanding and carefully inspected its every part, but have also surveyed it throughout, determining for each thing in this land its proper place." And then Kant finds not only a land, but a metaphor: "This land, however, is an island, and is enclosed by nature itself within unchangeable bounds. It is the land of truth (a charming name), and is surrounded by a vast and stormy ocean, where illusion properly resides and many fog banks and much fast-melting ice feign new-found lands. This sea incessantly deludes the seafarer with empty hopes as he roves through his discoveries, and thus entangles him in adventures that he can never relinquish, nor ever bring to an end."

When reason sets limits like nature, then that is not a conclusion, but a prototype, a beginning that is technical, moral and symbolic at the same time. A first device, a free beginning and a first sight appear in the same light. The map, in which Cartesian coordinates are supplemented by lines from the landscape, stands for this analogy. And Kant finds not only land or sea, but Herculean columns. It is to be expected that action and representation will emerge again from the construct (see Nietzsche's Concept of Appearance in this volume, 1992, p. 10ff).

--

Published and translated with the permission of the author. This text is part of an ongoing series on the writings of Berthold Reiß which porcile.org wishes to make accessible to a non-German speaking audience. The text is translated by porcile.org in exchange with Berthold Reiß, who is an artist that lives and works in Munich, Germany.

For the English equivalent of the quotes from Kant this translation refers to Werner S. Pluhar’s translation of Critique of Pure Reason (Unified Edition) (Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis, 1996).

For the English equivalent of the quotes from Kierkegaard this translation refers to Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong’s translation of Kierkegaard's Writings, II, Volume 2. The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates (Princeton University Press, 1990).

--

Victor’s notes

*The German translation that Berthold Reiß refers to translates here as Bild (image), in terms of bildlich (figurative or metaphorical). Hong&Hong translate this as metaphor.

**radical evil is an expression that is borrowed from Kant and also quoted as such in Kierkegaard

***nothing beyond – beyond the line connecting the Pillars of Hercules

****While here we went for the literal translation this is actually a play of words. Hinter den Horizont zu führen wie hinter das Licht. With the idom 'Hinter das Licht' in mind this could translate as '... lead behind the horizon and down the garden path.'

[kalosophia]

The Therapon — Chapter 1

PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE:

CRITO PHAEDO And by relation, SOCRATES THERAPON

SCENE: The precincts of the Temple of Hephaestus, overlooking the Agora, the morning after Socrates had died from poison.

*

CRI. Greetings, Phaedo; though I dare to say that no matter the humour of this day, you, and I in truth, have but little to welcome, and even the sun itself appears diluted in power since the departure of our greatest companion.

PHAE. Aye, friend Crito, this is easy to discover both from my mien and posture. I am emptied by the loss, and know not what best to say or to do in order to heal this angry wound within my heart.

CRI. I understand, and if it were not for the sublimity of his temperance and courage, in the midst of such adversity, I too would believe that only prolonged mourning would be left in the place that he has vacated within us. But hear, friend, what my thoughts are now, after such a long night of exercise, and see if they can be of any assistance to us both.

PHAE. I would gladly hear your thoughts, Crito, in preference to my own, if thoughts in reality mine are, and not merely the wild associations of a passive imagination, tormented by opposite opinions and phantasms, undisciplined and running free.

CRI. I recognize those horses, Phaedo, and have wrestled with them all throughout this dreadful night.

PHAE. I bear with me in my soul, like a branded image, a constant remembrance of the courage and temper exhibited by that man, both yesterday, and for so many days now past; and, perhaps, this impression will never leave me. But that virtue by which he surpassed all men known to me; that light which he so freely shone upon those who requested it, though he would say it was but dim, is what is now disappearing from my sight, like a ruined mirage at the approach of sunset.

CRI. To what do you allude, friend?

PHAE. I allude, dear Crito, to wisdom, his wisdom; though he would again say that he possessed little or none.

CRI. If we can but remember his words, they will adumbrate with certainty the wisdom of that man, and, indeed, that soul which it imbued so beautifully.

PHAE. His words are not difficult to recall, but their true meaning surely is. For it appears to me at this moment, that words uttered by one or another in whose company one happens to be, and this regularly, carry more weight and are charged with so much more power than any that are recalled to the memory, or are written, or are reported by some other. In that dear man, soul and reason were always present together; so that what he was he said, and what he said he was.

CRI. Your judgment is spoken fairly; and he, on many occasions, declared either as a hypothesis or a conclusion, that soul itself is reason, and that of an undivided intellect and life.

PHAE. This too I recall, but with not a little irony.

CRI. Well said, Phaedo; but punish yourself gently and with prudence, as all of us, his friends and disciples, are enclosed in that same recollection.

PHAE. I will try to do as you suggest, but, for me, that last day passed more swiftly than any day should; and what is left in me, as an unwelcome residue, is a longing that I did not request of him that which most pressed upon me then, and for many years previous to that baneful day.

CRI. Speak, friend, and unburden yourself, for now it is surely our time.

PHAE. This I well know, and know even better how poorly fitted I am for such a time; and maybe only Plato, and one other, are truly prescient of what shall be required of us.

CRI. But he has gone from us for a period, as a wounded creature retires to allow a natural healing after a savage encounter; and this other, who should he be?

PHAE. One of but a very few; but enough of this, Crito, my regret presses hard upon me.

CRI. What regret do you mean, and what deep longing fills your heaving breast?

PHAE. That I, among all those close to him, did not request a simple and comprehensive demonstration of that which he discussed throughout our time with him, and that I could use, both for myself and for the benefit of others, if I could only both assent to and believe it.

CRI. You know as well as I that for him, things truly simple required a strenuous effort to express; and things comprehensive, a mutual energy that would not be diverted from its necessary end.

PHAE. That is sure, I know, but even now my regret persists with vehemence.

CRI. Be open, good friend, and tell me the nature of your regret, or lock it away safely and consider it in yourself. For the man is departed, and though we choose not to follow him into death, we ought to the utmost of our ability to follow the dominating principle of his life; which even now, knowing the man, I am sure he is amply pursuing, once his period of rest and refreshment is complete. Phaedo, good man, explain to me what is in your mind, and why it troubles you so much.

PHAE. You are very good to me, Crito, and I appreciate your sympathetic indulgence, when you too, I know, are suffering from such a monumental loss as that which we witnessed so recently. I will try to be clear, and do you not exclaim with surprise that I should be so unsure about these things, after so long an exposure to their presence.

CRI. The indulgence is shared between us equally, and little would promote surprise in me after that of the day just past. Speak openly, friend, for you are safe in this company, and your uncertainty also may well be equally shared.

PHAE. That it may, Crito, but how will we see?

CRI. Declare, if you can, the nature of your uncertainty, and with whatever assistance he has left with us, we shall press for some comfort in the matter.

PHAE. It is thus, my friend, and no more, for my doubts are concerning ideas, and they are grave. For as so many discourses that we shared with him, so many times did I desire to hear him declare what they truly are, and how they subsist, and what are their generations, and how they are contacted and participated. These, Crito, my doubts are mountainous, and my shame in expressing them is proportionate.

CRI. It is well and often said that shame ill suits a man in need, and this especially when the indigence concerns a nature so profound, as well unknown save to some happy few. But I think that until the night before he took his final draught, I too was deeply involved in frequent doubt concerning these same things.

PHAE. What is it you say? Are your doubts then all removed?

CRI. For a large part they are, but not completely; and you will well remember the frequent assertion of his, that these things must be visited again and again and again, until they are more familiar to us than our own hands and feet.

PHAE. I remember.

CRI. Yet by some remarkable coincidence of need, or by a truly divine prompting, he took me with him on his final earthly visit to these things, and the journey and the way are still clear to my sight, so avidly did I listen, and follow and learn.

PHAE. What does this mean, and how did this come about? For we were together that day before, and shared in the same discourses, even though so much time was given over to the comfort of his family.

CRI. That is so, Phaedo, but we did not depart from the prison together.

PHAE. Did we not? My memory is not to be trusted at this present time.

CRI. We did not. For, late as it was, I went back to that place to ask that all conveniences should be extended to Socrates during that last night of his. And further, I prevailed upon the servant to let me sleep near to the precincts of his cell, as he is known to me, in order that I may be ready at the earliest moment to visit with Socrates, on what transpired to be his final day with us. Hence, I slipped into a troubled and shallow sleep, and awoke in some dark hour of the night, alerted by the closing of the cell door of Socrates.

PHAE. For what purpose was the door closed at such an hour, and on such a night?

CRI. It was the servant, Phaedo, entering the cell, for the purpose of bringing to Socrates a drink. For, I heard him offer a generous thanks to the man, and an apology for having disturbed his vigil. But it was then that a most astonishing conversation ensued, between the servant and our greatest friend.

PHAE. This relation is truly remarkable, Crito; but tell me, please, what their converse involved.

CRI. I will, and it is by far the more remarkable as it concerned the very subject about which you, and innumerable others, suffer so many and frequent doubts and uncertainties. Their dialogue was concerning ideas.

PHAE. In the name of Zeus! Crito, this is more than coincidence or accident so called. Do you remember what was said, and clearly?

CRI. I do; and I recall it as if I was present to it now.

PHAE. I earnestly implore you to relate it all to me, as fully and completely as is possible, for I need to hear this more than anything else at this time.

CRI. You are not alone, Phaedo; for I need both to recall and to relate it, and thus generate from that seed a meadow true and vitally abundant.

PHAE. I feel the power of the sun increasing once more. Let us retire under the shade of this broad plane, and you shall generate, and we shall attend that meadow, the Gods willing.

CRI. They are willing. Come, sit here, and be at peace with yourself, and I will relate to you all that I heard.

PHAE. I am now in active peace, and will hold on to your every word. Speak on, Crito.

CRI. I will speak, and we will both listen; but the dialogue thus began:

(To be continued)

— Guy

[nitrateglow]

A few hours ago, my browser recommended me the article “There is No Case for the Humanities” by Justin Stover. At first I thought it would be a call to reform of the humanities departments in academia, which I could totally get behind. It was not. If anything, it was painfully regressive in its views on the place of humanistic subjects in everyday life. Apparently, only scholars should bother with literature, history, art, and language. Apparently, this matters to no one outside of a lecture hall.

Such thinking appalls me to my very core.

If you were to buy into Stover’s ideas, then the humanities are only of interest to the scholastic elite. He actually compares humanities professors to members of a golf course, imparting a sense of frivolity to the study of literature, rhetoric, history, art, and religion. To him and to many, the humanities are worthless because they do not give people immediate economic benefit. Hence why everyone insists you’re better off sticking only to STEM majors or business or trade schools. He says the humanities are only really meant for academics who shut themselves off from the world and publish overly-specialized articles in publications no one but other academics read. Of course, they’re useless.

I take issue with the idea that the humanities are entirely frivolous: I have seen how students still write at a fifth-grade level or use strawman arguments when they leave high school; they NEED to learn how to properly write a sentence and communicate their ideas. That’s just part of the working world. Learning to fact-check is also rather important given the media atmosphere of our times. Considering how multicultural the world is becoming, learning how other people see the world isn’t so frivolous an idea either. And do I need to argue that history is important? Like, really? Of course, I do have my own problems with academia, having worked in it, but that isn’t my point here. I just take issue with the frankly elitist notion that “normal,” non-academic people have no use for the humanities. So did someone else as I came to discover. 

This rebuttal by Roberto Fubini is simple and direct: yes, we do not need the humanities to continue breathing. However, a world without myth or art or language is a dismal one. Our biological functions do not need these things, but as human beings, we absolutely do.

Fubini argues that the humanities should not be seen as the study of irrelevant, dead things only of interest to specialists, but of things vital to our lives and our understanding of the world. Anyone can benefit mentally and spiritually from the humanities. Here’s his defense for the humanities:

The humanities need no case: a response to Justin Stover and many others.

Editor’s note: This letter was written by a reader of the site; I have provided the links to posts he addresses in his remarks and include his references.

Rimini, Antica Cafeteria, Piazza Tre Martiri / January 2018

Dear Editor,

Your excerpt and publication of Justin Stover’s piece, “There is No Case for the Humanities,” brought to mind the ironies in the attempts to marginalize the study of literature, language, history, philosophy, or religion – in short, those areas we now call the humanities. All these attempts, Stover’s included, create puppets of the humanities and give them voice from their ventriloquism: squeaky, insecure sounds, which offer caricatures and puffed-out straw men. Stover would have us imagine the humanities confined to the university library and lecture hall, with their professors holding forth on the narrowest of subjects. Small wonder, then, that scientists push them aside and receive greater recognition.

These ventriloquists of the humanities may be staging their spectacle with the aim of delighting or antagonizing their readers, but they miss the central point. The staging and spectacle employ the very means they would caricature, namely the humanities. Rhetoric, logic, and language are at the heart of the humanities, and their opponents – as well as many of their would-be advocates – secretly make use of the humanities in their speeches about its worth.

Language: if one sits in a café in a busy square and listens to the conversations, not to eavesdrop, but rather to take in what language reveals, then one comes closer to the heart of the humanities. It is the language of gossip, anger, excitement, exhaustion, distraction; it is the language of lies and love. Federico Fellini in his Amarcord, his film of remembrance, traveled back to this seaside city to record this language. Recording this language, he made a work of art. But this art is not above us, foreign to us. It is not a learned abstraction. On the contrary, its language illuminates our lives. The groundlings in the Globe Theater could applaud Shakespeare’s Tempest, and follow Ariel as much as Caliban.

Stover speaks for many others who would make the humanities into fragile, erudite, and airy subjects. They are much more basic and durable. In fact, they preside over the means of their making. He argues that the humanities produce overspecialized and effete scholarship. We could try to defend this humanities hologram. But this would be only more theater of the absurd, when the drama itself lies in the language of argument. Stover overlooks the real stakes of his “case” against the humanities: the loss of language, or more specifically the loss of care for and love of language.

If we look to poets and thinkers across the centuries, we discover, repeatedly, that they have criticized scholars for their narrow pursuits, and also for their quest for fame and money. So Socrates mocked the sophists, and Lucian the philosophers. Seneca ridiculed their excesses, a theme picked up by Erasmus’s Folly, and then by Rabelais and Montaigne, who stated (or understated) that “the greatest scholars are not the wisest men.” This resonated with the words of Seneca, who called them “a spiritless lot: for people are forever acting as interpreters and never as creators, always lurking in someone else’s shadow” (letters 33 and 87).

But – in case you think I am now being pedantic myself – the point is to learn from the humanities, the range and depth of its literature. By this means we might more fully understand ourselves by understanding others. Scholarship, at its best, serves as the café waiter or maître d’ to these literary offerings.

The humanities are so fundamental that critics (and advocates) easily overlook them, but this oversight is part of our modern malady and one-sidedness. Here Italians are more alive to the dangers of this one-sidedness, which is why Rimini will always celebrate Fellini, and Certaldo its Boccaccio, and why Roberto Benigni, the actor and comedian, can read Dante before thousands of people on the steps of Santa Croce in Florence. The leading television program right now is a tour of Italy’s cultural heritage by Alberto Angela.

Russia, too, has long explored this modern urge to isolate and limit the humanities through science and scholarship. Gogol, in his brilliant Dead Souls, has his protagonist Tchitchikov visit two estates: one is run according to the latest scientific methods; on the other, the learned landowner yearns to educate the peasants in German arts and manners. The first farm is a model of utility and proficiency and the second is in disarray. Gogol shows us the ‘triumph’ of the sciences at a cost, the cost of character and personality, as well as the vanity of erudition. Both extremes exist to the detriment of both.

This is comical, but relevant, as relevant as the question raised in Dostoevsky’s Devils: what is more important, Pushkin or a pair of boots? Stover would have the humanities push literature into scholarly insignificance. But the humanities, at heart, tend Pushkin’s fire, so that his words could warm the spirits of Dostoevsky, Tchaikovsky, and Akhmatova, and through them untold numbers of readers for generations to come. As Joseph Brodsky observed, Dostoevsky found inspiration and insight in the very syntax of the Russian language, in its use of dependent clauses, which led to the spiraling psychological digressions that wind through his work.

Does all this that the humanities provide then need a “case”? Can we ever stand as advocates or lawyers for the humanities? Or do they not, rather, wait upon us to become more alive to their resources? They require not a case, but care. They remain in patient uselessness; they guard the gifts of language, which we all need though too little respect in our preoccupations with science and technology.

Rabindranath Tagore a century ago contemplated the advance of the sciences in words that were pungent and prescient. Tagore held science in esteem and met with Einstein in 1930 to discuss the nature of truth. Yet as an educator, poet, and philosopher, he warned against the single-minded mania for science as the path to fulfillment. He spoke to Japanese students in 1916 just as Japan was pursuing Western technological ‘advancement.’ The life of science, he told them, was a “superficial life”:

Science, when it oversteps its limits and occupies the whole region of life, has its fascination. It looks so powerful because of its superficiality – as does a hippopotamus which is very little else but physical. Science speaks of the struggle for existence, but forgets that man’s existence is not merely of the surface. Man truly exists in the ideal of perfection, whose height and depth are not yet measured. (“The Spirit of Japan,” July 2, 1916)

The height and depth of humanity, then: these are the coordinates of the humanities. We may ignore them as we ignore our inner lives, our need for myth and stories, even our love for flowers: all “useless” things that, somehow, we secretly recognize as essential to who we are, to our self-knowledge and our self-realization. Erwin Chargaff, the great biochemist who explored our DNA, echoed Tagore’s warning, with greater pessimism: “Our time” – he wrote some forty years ago – “when even Old Testament prophets must disguise themselves in laboratory gowns, will not understand when I say that the majority of those things that concern or should concern humanity plays out in realms in which the natural sciences have not bearing at all.”

It is pleasant to be idle in a city like Rimini and sit outside in warm January weather and, like the statue of Julius Caesar in the Piazza, observe the passeggiata of life. Life in the round is the realm of the humanities. This realm is more than the courtoisie of an educated few, as Stover imagines the culture of the humanities. If we listen to the poets and singers that voice our mythologies, our lives follow a richer cadence. Schools and universities may have retreated from these voices, but they have never left us, nor do I think they ever will, if the gods are kind. It falls to us to watch our language more intently, with a sense of wonder before what may appear on the horizon, what new vessel may bring the wandering poets home after what seems so long an exile.

Cordially,

Roberto Fubini

Amen!

[jeparlelibremente]

Blade Runner 2049 (Villeneuve)

“’You liked her, I could tell. It’s ok, I want to be real for you.’

‘You are real for me.’” 

“The things that come to light brutally in insanity remain hidden in the background in neurosis, but they continue to influence consciousness nonetheless. When, therefore, the analysis penetrates the background of conscious phenomena, it discovers the same archetypal figures that activate the deliriums of psychotics.” - Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

cw: spoilers for films and books discussed

I wanted to talk about this film for a while; because it’s one of my favourite sequels, because I think it was one of the best films of last year, because I think most audiences will woefully under appreciate how good this is in comparison to most of what Hollywood produces. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not trying to lay claim to this as an enduring work of genius, proffering the greatest insights into human nature since a certain Austrian dosed half his body weight in cocaine. I’m just saying that I really, really liked it, and it gave me much more than I’ve come to expect from Hollywood. Admittedly, not a high bar. But don’t let that fool you.

Quick diversion: in The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald breaks one of the golden rules of writing: never explicitly state your theme. It’s uncouth; ugly, unsightly, inelegant. The reason it works so well in his book is because he understands the rule well enough to break it poetically in the very final line. It’s difficult to do this; extremely difficult to write, extremely difficult to write an entire novel, and extremely difficult to break this rule in such a way that it doesn’t appear jarring and ugly to the reader. 2049 breaks the rule roughly halfway through, in a scene where Lieutenant Joshi (Wright) and K (Gosling) are talking in his apartment; K concedes his memories aren’t real, they’re ‘implants’ constructed by someone else. Fake memories for a fake human being? Joshi has a pattern in her interactions with K; she alternates between reaffirming the fact that he’s a replicant, and then making some reassuring, almost maternal remark. “You might be a replicant/not human, but I care for you” Anyway, inside his apartment she gives one line that spells it all out:

“We’re all just trying to get a hold of something that’s real”

This isn’t posed as some sophisticated ontological argument; 2049 had emotional impact (individual mileage may vary, obviously) precisely because your unconscious perceives these characters as being beneath... well, something aspiring to be, not human, but real. Seriously, watch the film, and then try and understand your transference with these characters. It’s almost like a parent to a child. Joi has a final heartbreaking scene with K; “I love you” right before black leather boot smashes her corporeal form into the floor. Note that her corporeal form, her physical substrate/soul, is a shiny metallic cylinder that serves both as her brain, and the device that projects her holographic image. Could you love a computer program that manifests itself in ‘human’ form via holographic projection?

Of course you could. Of course you would. Everything is just a symbol, a representation. Map to territory. How do you know your partner isn’t a hologram right now? “Well I can touch them and they can move around and” ok, fine. How about an android? “Well I could open them up and...” except you’re not going to open anyone up. I’m not trying to be a pedant here; no, really - I find Socrates and the dialectical form to be an enormous pain in the ass when it comes to writing. “We arrive at verisimilitude by ping-ponging between falsehoods...” (in an essay so painfully good it makes me insecure) this is true - it’s the meta-level analysis of Socratic dialogue. It’s why its effective. Binary. Two people arguing back and forth. But really, have you ever viewed the insides of anyone you’ve loved in real time? Unless you’re a surgeon, the answer is probably a hard no. Once again, not trying to be a pain in the ass, just pointing out that you assume this is the truth based on your experience of the world in general. This isn’t an insult, it’s system one thinking. The proof that it works is that the human race is around and I’m writing this essay. If you claim you couldn’t love an android because you know they’re an android, then you’re prizing - fetishising (if that word hasn’t been overused at this point) - what it means to be human. If any common sense inspection couldn’t tell you the difference between a human - mostly water and hydrocarbons, and an android - for arguments sake - mostly silicon, then what are the consequences of having sex with one versus the other? Yes, this is just consequentialism. It holds. In the most dire interpretation, having sex with a robot indistinguishable from a human is no worse than masturbation; a one night stand, streaming 4K porn on your smartphone etc. No emotions, just some object to use as a prop.

Does Joi really know what love is? Well, what’s Joi? She’s a computer program, granted. Produced en masse and sold to keep lonely people company. A next generation Aibo, sans memory stick and music playing abilities (unfortunately) The film doesn’t have any hard exposition here but I’m going to assume for conveniences sake that once she’s purchased by someone, she, in a sense, imprints and begins to develop some kind of original growth. She’s projected from the in K’s apartment at first - a physical constraint. Then he cashes in his big cheque to buy her a portable ‘emanator’ - intentional or not on the part of the writers, this is like letting a child begin to grow up. Joi follows a process of self-actualisation in the film as she begins to take on increasing responsibility - and risk. From ceiling, to outdoors, to adopting a semi-corporeal form and making love to K, to willingly accepting the ultimate vulnerability: the potential to die. Love, actual, genuine, bona fide love, requires self-sacrifice. It requires adapting to meet the demands, “mental and physical” of someone else. You can phrase your argument around neurotransmitters and hormones and so on, but limerence only gets you so far; at some point, adult to adult, you will have to adapt and communicate with each other. Vulnerability to intimacy.

Her love for K is more real than the love some adults of our species achieve during their lifetime. It’s not childish or infantilised; he sacrifices his entire bonus, the source of his power, to free her from her constraints. Reassures her that she doesn’t need to affirm her love for him just because its in her programming (is it?), and then ultimately, her love finds expression in the ultimate vulnerability... and its tragic conclusion.

Peter Debruge, writing for Variety, I think manages to miss what the ‘unreal’ things in this film want: “It’s perhaps the central irony of “Blade Runner 2049,” which depicts a future where humans have gone astray, while new-and-improved androids know precisely what they want: to be human.” They don’t want to be human, they want to be given equal rights as humans. Humane treatment. Reproduction? Sure - but how many people are actively thinking about having kids in that way? They need a partner; for this to work, all the right emotional modules have to be in place. And they’re already human in every way that counts - all that’s missing is their rights. Joi just wants a physical body, K wants to know what the deal is with his memory. You can see how much he suffers, his pain, his despair. “Your memories, that you thought were a lie, are actually real” Can you even begin to imagine this kind of pain? What if somebody told you you were an android? What kind of existential crisis would you suffer, given those circumstances? It’s not about being human, it’s about being recognised as real and treated with humane compassion. 

[thornstocutyouwith]

—¤÷(`[¤*╟Meet The Muse╢*¤]´)÷¤— 𝓈𝒶𝑔𝑒 𝓂𝒶𝓁𝒶𝓀𝒶𝒾 𝓅𝒶𝓋𝓁𝑜𝓋 Theme Music Band Drummer

⎨ The Basics ⎬

➥Legal Name: Sage Malakai Pavlov ➥Nickname/Alias: Kai ➥Birthday: April 2, 1997 ➥Birthplace: Chelyabinsk, Russia ➥Sex: Male ➥Species: Human ➥Preferred Pronouns: He, him, ex. ➥Sexual Orientation: Bisexual ➥Spoken Languages: English, French ➥Faceclaim: Cameron Monaghan ➥Personality:

✔✔✔Positive:

➥ Fun-Loving: Light hearted and lively. ➥ Curious: Eager to know and learn something. ➥ Serious: Acting or speaking sincerely and in earnest, rather than in a joking or halfhearted manner. ➥ Reflective: Relating to or characterized by deep thought; thoughtful. ➥ Skillful: Having or showing skill. ➥ Observant: Quick to notice things. ➥ Humorous: Causing lighthearted laughter and amusement. Having or showing a sense of humor. ➥ Enthusiastic: Having or showing intense and eager enjoyment, interest, or approval. ➥ Creative: Relating to or involving the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work. ➥ Well-Read: Knowledgeable and informed as a result of extensive reading

✘✘✘ Negative:

➥ Sarcastic: Marked by or given to using irony in order to mock or convey contempt. ➥ Temperamental: Liable to unreasonable changes of mood. ➥ Callous: Showing or having an insensitive and cruel disregard for others. ➥ Offhand: Ungraciously or offensively nonchalant or cool in manner. ➥ Disorderly: Lacking organization; untidy. Involving or contributing to a breakdown of peaceful and law-abiding behavior. ➥ Complex: Someone who is difficult to understand/comprehend as an individual due to their personality or lifestyle. ➥ Crafty: Clever at achieving one's aims by indirect or deceitful methods. ➥ Unforgiving: Not willing to forgive or excuse people's faults or wrongdoings. ➥ Outspoken: Frank in stating one's opinions, especially if they are critical or controversial. ➥ Contradictory: Mutually opposed or inconsistent. Given to argument and contention. Unable both to be true or both to be false under the same circumstances

☠ ☠ ☠Fears: Drowning, The Unknown, Bad storms/Thunderstorms, Failure

⎨ A History Lesson ⎬

➥Backstory:

Sage had been originally born in Russia, to a television actor and his model girlfriend. While the family was away in America on a family vacation when Sage was about eight months old. During the incident, Sage received one of his first scars being hit by a stray bullet on the lower left side of his abdomen. This left Sage one of the very few survivors of the tragic ordeal. Despite the best efforts of child services getting him returned to his living family members were far too young to take the infant in. Eventually, he was put into the system, ending up in an orphanage in Africa. This is where he grew up over the course of four years of his life. Sage was often sickly while living in Africa. It was soon discovered that his apparent sick spells were caused by exposure to the sunlight.

When Sage had just turned six a family in Africa had been allowed to foster home. During his time with that family, they had moved to another country. Once there Sage was sold to another family and completely lost to the system at this point. By the time Sage had turned eight he had been moved from one place to another, for illegal services. Some of these services included drug peddling. Which is where Sage had learned his first craft, how to sell/move illegal goods. Thankfully outside of holding the drugs and being used to distract anyone who might grow suspicious he did not have to do anything else. As a drug peddler, Sage also picked up on how to make several drugs and grow. Even at a young age, it was clear that he was intelligent and more adult about things. But because of this, he would never have a proper childhood, or truly know what it would be like to have been a child, during this time.

As he was shifted from one household to another in trades, Sage was often physically abused by his mother and father figures. As well as emotionally abused. This lead to him easily shutting off his emotions in order to properly take in and deal with a situation, executing it precisely. When Sage was about to turn ten child services finally were able to track him down when one careless family had ended up being raided by the police. By this time Sage had been living in America and it was decided he was to be put into a foster home that had a history of taking care of other foster children.

While he was living with this foster family life appeared to settle down more for Sage and he began to be more of a normal child. The foster parents he had this second time around had treated him like their actual children and truly did love him, even as he grew older and started to become more reckless and cold. They never tried to be too harsh with him whenever he got a failing grade. This eventually lead to Sage trying his best in school. He wanted nothing more than to be more than just another lost cause in the foster system. As far as school goes he eventually had gone from failing to being at the top of his classes. Teachers would often praise his intelligence during Parents Teacher Meetings. Sage was never interested in this though, as he was only doing his best to make his foster parents proud. He felt that this would be the only time anyone would ever truly be proud of any sort of work he did.

By the time he was fifteen though things went downhill again, his academics did not suffer. But he started to branch out more into criminal activities. He was hanging out with what would be considered the 'bad kids' at school. Sage had picked up a bad habit of smoking around this time as well as sneaking into theaters to watch movies and stealing from gas stations mostly. A bad reputation began to form for him when he was arrested for stealing a store. This was the first time he had ever been caught and arrested. His bad reputation, as well as rumors people would start about him, made him out to be much more deadly than he actually ever was. But Sage never spoke up about any of these things, to explain or deny. He didn't care enough to argue his reputation openly. Sage was never much of a talker, which certainly never helped his case. Some classmates were afraid he would actually hurt them so they would try to avoid him or be overly nice if they couldn't do that.

After assaulting another classmate in school when he was sixteen Sage was suspended and sent to a juvenile detention center for several months. After his release, he had been involved with a few of the local drug dealers were just a few months later he was put back into juvie over drug possession. Once he was released the second time Sage decided to let things cool off for a while. During this time Sage's foster parents were no longer legally bound to keep track of him. He was emancipated and free from his parental guide. Though this did not stop the pair from keeping in contact with the other. Sage managed to eventually get a decent job and apartment in another part of California away from his old school. After settling in over the summer Sage went back to school for his last year, this time staying on a decent path away from drugs and other illegal activities.

Not long after starting school he started to make actual friends, though he still kept most of himself secret from these friends. Not wanting to talk about his past if he can help it.

Over the next few years until now Sage has been able to maintain his secrets and hide his past life successfully. He lives in a house now and has several pets that he's very close with. When he's not doing things along with the band he usually is making gaming videos for youtube/Twitch. Of which he has quite a following, even before that band started getting fame. His channel has been running successfully for years.

➥Education: Highschool ➥Who were they in school? (class clown, mean girl, etc.): Distant loner type, mostly. ➥Occupation: Musician, Drummer  ➥Occupation they wanted as a child: Violinist ➥Socioeconomic level growing up: Below Average ➥Socioeconomic level now: Average ➥Living conditions growing up: Somewhat harsh ➥Living conditions now: Well enough ➥Criminal Record: Arrested for theft when he was 15, Assaulting someone, Drug possession

⎨ Relationships ⎬

➥Parents: Sasha Pavlov ( Father ), Tatiana Razen ( Mother ), They are Dead ➥Siblings: None ➥Significant Others: ➥Best Friends: ➥Friends: ➥Rivals: ➥Enemies: ➥Pets: Socrates ( Cat ) Aristotle ( Hamster ) Artemis ( Hamster ) Caligula ( Dog ) Elagabalus ( Cat ) 

⎨ Let’s Get Physical ⎬

➥Character’s Build: Lean, Athletic

➥Height: 5'11" ➥Weight: 131 ➥Hair Colour: Dark red ➥Eye Colour: Greenish blue ➥Body Modifications: Piercings ➥Scars/Birthmarks: Bullet scar on abdomen, Vicious scar on left shoulder and partially on neck, Freckles ➥Tattoos: Right Arm, Front left shoulder area, Scarification along right left side of his body. ➥Restrictions: Can't eat blueberries ( allergic ), seasonal allergies, Sunlight ➥Physical or Mental Illnesses: Photodermatitis (Sun Poisoning)

➥Addictions:

⎨ The Juicy Stuff ⎬

➥Quirks/Other:

➥ Still sleeps with his favorite childhood stuffed animal ➥ Always seems to be injured in some way, whether it be a small paper cut or bruise, or something more significant ➥ Energy Drink obsessed ➥ Slightly Narcoleptic ➥ Watches old PBS/Nick Jr shows ➥ Plays with small random objects when concentrating ➥ Carries writing/reading items with him everywhere ➥ Can repeat scenes from Movies and Shows he's seen before, even if he hasn't seen them in a long time ➥ Almost always listening to music when not actively socializing with others ➥ Talks to Plants and Animals, jokingly seen as talking to these two things more than actual people ➥ Great with technology ➥ Mumbler ➥ Always has a book with him ➥ Fidgets when nervous ➥ Sings in the shower ➥ Owns every gaming system ➥ Collects random rocks he finds ➥ Will throw things if you piss him off ➥ Will play with children's toys if not given/having anything else to do ➥ Tells people he has killed another person before. But he hasn't. ➥ Doesn't know how to swim

➥Likes/Dislikes: ❤❤❤Likes: Roleplaying, Comic Books, Collecting actions figures, Animals, Zoo's, Museums, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Grapes, Peaches, The color black, Going on walks alone, Space, Peanuts, Walnuts, Pistachios, Cartoons/Anime, Video games, Marvin The Martian, Donald Duck, Aliens, Gushers ( Fruit Snack), Candy, Lemonade, Apple Juice, Root Beer, Boardgames, Insects, Mythology, Booty Call  ☣ ☣ ☣Dislikes: People who think they have him all figured out, Reptiles, Pushovers, Outright Liars, Religion, Politics, The Sun, People who limit their gaming experiences by arguing one side is better than the other, Getting dirty, Being sexualized, Constantly being hit on, Getting sick, Being cut off when talking, Social Media, Constantly being touched, Awkward moments, Having to do math, Being arrested, Overbearing Fangirls,

Extras:

➥Vice: Sloth, Wrath ➥Virtue: Chastity, Patience ➥MBTI/Enneagram: INTP-A / 8w7 ( 5 ) ➥Alignment: ➥Hogwarts/Ilvermorny House: ➥Element/Signs: Aries ➥Character Links: Aesthetics ➥Character Tropes: Kick Me Cute Kitten Oral Fixation Libation for the Dead Redhead In Green Smoking is GlamorousWhile Rome Burns All Drummers Are Animals Batter Up Blanket Fort Half-Identical Twins Good Old Fisticuffs Genre Savvy Beware The Quiet Ones Fight Clubbing My Fist Forgives You Sarcastic Clapping Guyliner Precious Puppy You Are Not Alone

Anthems

Why Worry

Sarcasm

In The City

We are Young

I'd Rather Drown

Never Surrender

Control(hehe)