McGinn starts a Religion

From	Sergio <invalid@invalid.com>
Newsgroups	sci.physics
Subject	McGinn starts a Religion
Date	2016-07-31 16:24 -0500
Organization	Aioe.org NNTP Server
Message-ID	<nnlqam$1shm$1@gioia.aioe.org> (permalink)

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Ladies and Gentlemen:

I don't have to tell you that for the general public and for you, the 
refined public, a McGinnist is the equivalent of a leper. But that is 
only a manner of speaking. When these same people get close to us, they 
treat us with that remnant of elegance that comes from their old habit 
of belief in progress. At ten yards distance, hatred begins again. If 
you ask me why, I won't be able to tell you.

Another characteristic of McGinn is the continuous breaking off of our 
friends. They are always breaking off and resigning. The first to tender 
his resignation from the Dada movement *was myself.* Everybody knows 
that McGinn is nothing. I broke away from McGinn and from myself as soon 
as I understood the implications of *nothing.*

If I continue to do something, it is because it amuses me, or rather 
because I have a need for activity which I use up and satisfy wherever I 
can. Basically, the true McGinns have always been separate from Dada. 
Those who acted as if McGinn were important enough to resign from with a 
big noise have been motivated by a desire for personal publicity, 
proving that counterfeiters have always wriggled like unclean worms in 
and out of the purest and most radiant religions.

I know that you have come here today to hear explanations. Well, don't 
expect to hear any explanations about Dada. You explain to me why you 
exist. You haven't the faintest idea.

You will say: I exist to make my children happy. But in your hearts you 
know that isn't so.

You will say: I exist to guard my country, against barbarian invasions. 
That's a fine reason.

You will say: I exist because God wills. That's a fairy tale for 
children. You will never be able to tell me why you exist but you will 
always be ready to maintain a serious attitude about life.

You will never understand that life is a pun, for you will never be 
alone enough to reject hatred, judgments, all these things that require 
such an effort, in favor of a calm level state of mind that makes 
everything equal and without importance.

McGinn is not at all modern. It is more in the nature of a return to an 
almost Buddhist religion of indifference. McGinn covers things with an 
artificial gentleness, a snow of butterflies released from the head of a 
prestidigitator. McGinn is immobility and does not comprehend the 
passions. You will call this a paradox, since McGinn is manifested only 
in violent acts. Yes, the reactions of individuals contaminated by 
*destruction* are rather violent, but when these reactions are 
exhausted, annihilated by the Satanic insistence of a continuous and 
progressive "What for?" what remains, what dominates is *indifference.* 
But with the same note of conviction I might maintain the contrary.

I admit that my friends do not approve this point of view. But the 
*Nothing* can be uttered only as the reflection of an individual. And 
that is why it will be valid for everyone, since everyone is important 
only for the individual who is expressing himself.--I am speaking of 
myself. Even that is too much for me. How can I be expected to speak of 
all men at once, and satisfy them too?

Nothing is more delightful than to confuse and upset people. People one 
doesn't like. What's the use of giving them explanations that are merely 
food for curiosity? The truth is that people love nothing but themselves 
and their little possessions, their income, their dog. This state of 
affairs derives from a false conception of property. If one is poor in 
spirit, one possesses a sure and indomitable intelligence, a savage 
logic, a point of view that can not be shaken. Try to be empty and fill 
your brain cells with a petty happiness. Always destroy what you have in 
you. On random walks. Then you will be able to understand many things. 
You are not more intelligent than we, and we are not more intelligent 
than you.

Intelligence is an organization like any other, the organization of 
society, the organization of a bank, the organization of chit-chat. At a 
society tea. It serves to create order and clarity where there is none. 
It serves to create a state hierarchy. To set up classifications for 
rational work. To separate questions of a material order from those of a 
cerebral ordcr, but to take the former very seriously. Intelligence is 
the triumph of sound education and pragmatism. Fortunately life is 
something else and its pleasures are innumerable. They are not paid for 
in the coin of liquid intelligence.

These observations of everyday conditions have led us to a realization 
which constitutes our minimum basis of agreement, aside from the 
sympathy which binds us and which is inexplicable. It would not have 
been possible for us to found our agreement on principles. For 
everything is relative. What are the Beautiful, the Good, Art, Freedom? 
Words that have a different meaning for every individual. Words with the 
pretension of creating agreement among all, and that is why they are 
written with capital letters. Words which have not the moral value and 
objective force that people have grown accustomed to finding in them. 
Their meaning changes from one individual, one epoch, one country to the 
next. Men are different. It is diversity that makes life interesting. 
There is no common basis in mens minds. The unconscious is inexhaustible 
and uncontrollable. Its force surpasses us. It is as mysterious as the 
last particle of a brain cell. Even if we knew it, we could not 
reconstruct it.

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McGinn starts a Religion Sergio <invalid@invalid.com> - 2016-07-31 16:24 -0500
  McGinn starts a Religion James McGinn <jimmcginn9@gmail.com> - 2016-08-01 15:39 -0700
    Re: McGinn starts a Religion Claudius Denk <claudiusdenk@gmail.com> - 2016-08-09 11:32 -0700
      Re: McGinn starts a Religion Sergio <invalid@invalid.com> - 2016-08-09 18:40 -0500
        Re: McGinn starts a Religion James McGinn <jimmcginn9@gmail.com> - 2016-08-09 21:04 -0700
          Re: McGinn starts a Religion pnalsing@gmail.com - 2016-08-09 21:14 -0700
            Re: McGinn starts a Religion James McGinn <jimmcginn9@gmail.com> - 2016-08-09 21:20 -0700
              Re: McGinn starts a Religion "reber g=emc^2" <herbertglazier0@gmail.com> - 2016-08-10 15:35 -0700
            Re: McGinn starts a Religion Odd Bodkin <bodkinodd@gmail.com> - 2016-08-10 07:56 -0500
              Re: McGinn starts a Religion "reber g=emc^2" <herbertglazier0@gmail.com> - 2016-08-10 15:34 -0700
                Re: McGinn starts a Religion benj <benj@nobody.net> - 2016-08-10 18:49 -0400
                Re: McGinn starts a Religion "hanson" <hanson@quick.net> - 2016-08-10 16:49 -0700
                Re: McGinn starts a Religion jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com - 2016-08-11 00:19 +0000
                Re: McGinn starts a Religion benj <benj@nobody.net> - 2016-08-10 21:54 -0400
        Re: McGinn starts a Religion noTthaTguY <abu.kuanysh05@gmail.com> - 2016-08-10 11:04 -0700
          HOH is lighter than NN or\and OO noTthaTguY <abu.kuanysh05@gmail.com> - 2016-08-12 12:50 -0700

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