A Fractal-work Orange? The Bride of Fractalstein?

Anxiety. Mind. Body. Fatigue. Hygiene. Nervous System. Nervous Disease. Mental Disorder.
(Chart, p. 40)

My sentiments exactly.

p. 219, Footnote # 25: Abbott dreams of a theory that will allow him to continually surf atop the great fractal wave, always a step ahead of the perpetual crest and crash of paradigms, always a cut above the endless recycling of the nagging moral claims of various subaltern groups and theories. I can't fault him for that. He knows that Sisyphus will never get the rock up the hill, so he studies all the different unsuccessful strategies that Sisyphus could employ. The only thing that surprises me is that Abbott was surprised that this commenter accused him of conducting an exercise in hegemonic universalism. Having mapped the inexorable dynamic of academic argument, I would have assumed he'd had that accusation thrown his way before. Well, as we now know, he will inevitably encounter it again and again.

It's a theory that explains the dynamics of intellectual inquiry so well, it could put you to sleep.

If that sounds cryptic at all, it means I find his theory accurate but uninspiring--very "scientific," in the purely pejorative sense that implies a rigidity that doesn't allow for humor or horror.

Speaking of horror, I'm about to quote Nietzsche, something I never anticipated wanting or knowing how to do. Please don't tell anyone.

"What does the people really understand by knowledge?...Nothing more than this: Something strange shall be traced back to something familiar... The familiar is to say: that to which we are accustomed, so tha we are no longer surprised at it... Is our need to know not precisely this--the need for the familiar, the will to discover among all that is strange, unaccustomed, questionable something that no longer disturbs us?"

Self-similar systems.

It seems he's undertaking to rehabilitate Durkheim by operationalizing Taoism for contemporary academic debate (i.e. paradoxical holism, the Yin and Yang thing). I prefer the original. And Wittgenstein's update.

"When the whole is divided,the parts need new names."

The fractal evolution of Taoism is that is fantastic for achieving resolution and reconciliation, but it points in the direction of complacency. Like every theory, it gets over-determinate when indiscriminately applied.

I just wish he'd explained a world that had any "chaos" to it--he seems to have made clockwork sense out of everything.

There you are, Dylan. No more special snowflakes.

I have no questions.

Ned

(Don't get me wrong, it's nothing personal against Abbott; First of all, my discontent is probably primarily due to a fractally expanding case of stress, fatigue and resultant ill-being--and that's a direct causal link; Second, he earned points with me for the following reasons:

1) My undergrad major was also an amalgam of history and lit;
2) I also do not wish to identify passionately with a methodology because I imagine they're all useful or not depending on the context and the skill/preference of the researcher;
3) I also hate the fact that extreme arguments can repeatedly win by virtue of their consistency with no relation to truth or moral content--just like fundamentalist movements are the best equipped over the long term to manipulate democracies;
4) Even though I know it's a terrible shame to be one, I probably am some species of liberal;
5) He mentioned my neighborhood in DC (footnote, p. 197).)