Carefully hidden behind that peaceful facade lies in wait, I assure you,
what can make your life fuller, richer, more rewarding. I have not the
patience to write out the details of my insights, nor do I wish to share
my most carefully guarded secrets with those who cannot understand the
grandeur of my accomplishments. I am, however, willing to envoke my
divine influence for the benefit of those who pay homage to me. Visa and
MasterCard accepted.
For those more interested in
mundane, fiscally prudent information I'll impart some of the wisdom
I've collected over the years. First, I might as well label myself
according to my favorite "-isms" just in case you'd like to ask me about
any of them. I find plausible the following theories: Atheism, (a
version of) Ethical Egoism, (some) Sociobiological theory, Skepticism,
Physical Determinism, and Objectivist Annihilationalism. I am also
pro-choice, pro-death penalty, and a pro-pre-marital sexualist. Please
feel free to ask me about any of these topics via e-mail,
my homepage
or at the Phil
Club. I love to debate topics... I'd even debate my love of debate with
you if you'd like.
But, for now our time grows short and my hamsters await. Be sure to wake
me if the world relieves itself from its general state of
higgeldy-piggeldy. Vaya con habichuelas.
Brian Johnson
My existence on this planet has been fairly brief. It is a hot
internal controversy as to what my origins were, but most of me seems to
think that I am a fragment of God's perversion. In other words, I am
the part of God that He just couldn't face the morning after.
Consequently, I sprang into existence fully grown on January 9th, 1987.
I have gone through many phases. Currently I am experimenting with
the idea of subsisting off of nothing but very small fish. Understand,
I am experimenting only with the idea, as eating very small fish would
be pointless and absurd.
I believe that man is a social creature, and that is his doom. I
am not one of those born again somethings, rest assured, but it does
seem likely to me that the inevitable result of the union of many human
minds is a synergistic stupidity. Remember, I am not one of those
somethings, so I would never suggest that we will kill ourselves with
nuclear war, or germ war, or even the late night talk show war. Man
lost his best chance for doing something interesting when he failed to
engage in the Third World War (everyone's luckiest lucky number). Think of
the evolutionary changes this would have brought about in the camping
industry alone! Yet, now it can never be. Oh sure, there are plenty of
nukes left laying around, but now nulcear war would lack the charm of
the ultimate expression of the centralization of a technological-industrial
society. Nuclear war has lost its chance at being aesthetically
pleasing.
I am not into aesthetics to be honest. In fact, I am not into any
coventional philosophy. I am, in fact, into the philosophy of the
essential nature of the exhaust system of a seventy-eight impala. If
you, in outrage, claim that I am being too systematic in my thinking,
then I must point out that it is not all seventy-eight impalas that I am
contemplating, but, rather, a specific one. The problem, or, at least,
one of the problems, is that I don't know the owner of the car, and have
only seen it a couple of times. In fact, its owner lives in a
completely different city which I only rarely visit (and wouldn't you
like to know which one!). And no, this is not some Kafka-esque metaphor
for the existentialist plight of man. I say start with exhaust systems
and move down from there.
But you see that I have much to consider, and little time for a
non-exhaust thinker like you, so this will have to be all.
Philosophy Club, Iowa State University
Jay Hannah (jhannah@iastate.edu)