The Marching Morons
Mar. 17th, 2013 08:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
likethebeerC.M. Kornbluth's story, "The Marching Morons" involves a man from the 20th Century who wakes up in a future in which the average I.Q. has been lowered to the level of moron (I don't think calling someone whose I.Q. is below 70 a "moron" is allowed any longer, although it used to actually be used).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons (<--spoiler alert)
Here it is reprinted on-line:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23657356/The-Marching-Morons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons (<--spoiler alert)
Here it is reprinted on-line:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23657356/The-Marching-Morons
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2013-03-17 03:34 pm (UTC)Hmmm, and all this time I thought it had to do with my shapely buttocks.
Yes, I believe “moron” replaced “idiot.” And then “moron” was replaced by “retarded.” All have been replaced by “mentally challenged” and now the homogenized “special needs.” The need to keep updating the term shows how society is uncomfortable with low IQs. Also, in the culture(s) of people with disabilities, those with low IQ are the lowest caste. The deaf are the highest caste – elite and separate from the others. They have their own language.
I’ll get around to reading this.
intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-17 03:44 pm (UTC)are you saying you're intelligent, or a moron?
Thanks for running down the list of the terms for those with low I.Q.s. "Retarded" has been gone so long that I feel guilty if I even think it, so I'm surprised it doesn't seem as old as I've thought. I had a professor in grad school who was deaf in one ear and he wrote his dissertation on 100 deaf artists. He had ideas regarding deaf culture that I had never thought about before. Cochlear implants were just coming in, which was the beginning of the controversy in the deaf community (I don't know where that argument is now).
'k - must bathe. See ya.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-18 02:57 am (UTC)No, I was making a “Rob is sexy” joke which obviously failed. As for my own intelligent or moronic status, what can I say? Some days I put the “smart” in smart ass; some days I put the “ass” in smart ass. Unfortunately, I can’t tell those days apart.
Yeah, sorry, that list reads kind of patronizing. Really, it was more about me getting my thinking juices going.
“Retarded” is alive and well as a slur. Come to Community College with me and you will hear it several times in a day.
I’d be interested in his ideas of deaf culture. From my experiences: the deaf looked down on the physically handicapped; in turn, the physically handicapped looked down on those with mental disabilities.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-18 03:48 am (UTC)And I didn't find the list patronizing.
And I fear that I am bleeding heart enough that hearing the word "retarded" as a slur several times a day would make me really depressed.
Mirzoeff expressed his thoughts on deaf culture a little bit, but I couldn't describe them all. I was looking up some of his books today - they have to do with visual culture.
Oh, but his dissertation about the 100 deaf artists was published as a book:
http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Poetry-Nicholas-Mirzoeff/dp/0691037892/
Damn - when he was my teacher I came to feel he was just scary-smart, and had a great way of looking at things. I'm slightly relieved that he's not as adorable looking as when he was working at our university. I had, but didn't have, a huge crush on the man: I had a crush on him because his mind was so absolutely incredible; I didn't have a crush on him for all the expected reasons: the man was my professor, married to a woman who I imagine was as smart as he was, & I knew that the only reason I had a crush on him was that his mind excited me.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-18 03:23 pm (UTC)Being a smart ass is an art. It’s all about creating harmony between your “smart” and your “ass.” Stick with me, kid. I’ll show you how it’s done.
The whole people saying “retard” all the time really bothered me at first. But I also get to watch some of these people mature over a 16/17 week period. And sometimes they come out the other end with a little more empathy.
A visual culture. That is interesting.
I think we all had that professor. The 25 year old version of me had a huge crush on my 70 year old Chaucer professor. Oh, the things that woman could do with a medieval accent.
Oh, and in regard to a previous conversation.
http://immemor.livejournal.com/189574.html#comments
Well, I need to get to campus. I have procrastinated enough.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-18 06:26 pm (UTC)Nice to know you can get along ok w/the words flying over your head, and can see a change in a couple of months.
If I could remember more of what Mirzoeff said & did; although so much of it is in my brain I probably can't tease it all out. He is the professor that talked to us about Lacan, most of which I could not understand. And it's good to know that most of us had that professor. I'd thought the crushes stopped a lot younger & have carried around guilt for, oh, 18-19 years (which just means that everything's right with the universe).
If you hadn't explained the Ravens, I'd not understand just how bad it was. Although I've had the cheesesteak with fries, and, if someone's gotta have a dish that's connected to their personality, that's not a bad one.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-19 02:35 am (UTC)Don’t feel guilty about a crush. It’s a beautiful thing. I never crushed on teachers until I was older. But I went to school in my late 20s.
I wanted to find those cheesesteak places that are across the street from each other when I was in Philly but I spent all my time lost in the French Quarter.
Tonight, the subject of football came up at pub trivia. I mentioned that I had a friend who was a WI transplant from E. Penn and that this friend hated the Steelers. Everyone cheered and had a good time. But mention the Ravens and it gets nasty.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-19 02:52 am (UTC)I've never found those 2 cheesesteak places. I think it's because, around there, you go anywhere and they're all good. It's the first thing I want when I get around Philly - no ketchup, no peppers - just cheese, meat, and fried onions.
What was going through my head when Prof. Mirzoeff sat across from me in his office (talking about, you know, my fricking future) made me sit on my hands. Not total-killing guilt, just a bit of embarrassment. Not like any other student in the program couldn't tell by talking to me. Who else did we have? Henry Drewel - v. nice if you liked men in colorful clothes who spoke Yoruba, one of the languages from West Africa - no, he was cool &, you know what? I learned how to make chicken with milk and flour and stuff because he was having a party for grad students. I had to bring something for dinner (I didn't call it chicken with milk and flour and stuff).
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-19 03:40 am (UTC)Haha – now I’m wondering what was going through your head.
So that’s the history of chicken with milk and flour and stuff.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-19 03:54 am (UTC)That's the most I'll go into what was going through my head.
I knew I had to make it for some party, just whose finally came back to me in writing about it.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-19 01:37 pm (UTC)Oh bad girl thoughts. I get ya.
Funny how LJ can jog the memory like that.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-19 01:55 pm (UTC)What the hell did you think those thoughts were? Of course they were bad girl thoughts.
Maybe the jogging of memory has to do with all the electrical impulses going down to move the fingers. Like when you forget something, so you walk back to the same place where you last remembered it & then it works.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-19 02:30 pm (UTC)Your bad girl thoughts give me bad boy thoughts. If you lined up all the people with bad girl and bad boy thoughts and had them walk through an arch four at a time, you’d never get to the end of the line. What are we going to do with all these perverts? The people with pure thoughts just aren’t making enough babies.
I have a tactile memory. If I need to remember something I write it write it write it… I go through a few packs of legal pads every semester.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-19 03:57 pm (UTC)Maybe it's the oil refineries in Jersey? No, I bet that water's going to the ocean. I remember hearing this one story about a hot dog factory in Chicago in which they discovered, when a new factory was created, that the hot dogs didn't taste the same. After doing all this stuff, someone finally figured out that the time they had taken in the old factory to get the hot dogs to the baking area turned out to be the secret ingredient; so they had to re-arrange things to bring that time back in.
Maybe the secret ingredient for Philly cheesesteak buns is Aquanet and too much make-up in the water.
"you’d never get to the end of the line": bringing us back to the "Marching Morons".
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-19 09:44 pm (UTC)And we’re all still eating hot dogs from Chicago. In your face, Upton Sinclair. I still can’t recreate a hot dog from the ballpark, no matter what I do. Is there a way to calculate the Indians being down 7 runs in the second into the recipe?
Nice work detective. Late at night, when no one is looking, I dump Aquanet and make-up off the Ben Franklin Bridge.
It’s “call back” technique. It gives people the joy of recognition. But that’s graduate school level smart ass. You need to get your MFA in smart ass to learn about that stuff.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-20 12:40 am (UTC)It's been too long since I had hot dogs from a ball park to know how special they are. Maybe the pervasive gloom lends something to the hot dog taste?
We used to get big, fat pretzels at the stadium in Philly when we saw the Phillies when we were kids, as we were leaving the game; they cost my dad a quarter (or, 2 dimes & a nickel). I can't eat Philly pretzels that aren't sweaty and cold.
I don't even have a high school diploma in smart ass.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-20 03:50 am (UTC)It will be baseball’s opening day soon. Or, as we call it here: the long, slow descent from hope to reality. Now I want to go to a Phillies game. (2 dimes and a nickel – haha!)
I understand, you were too busy getting advance degrees in awesome.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-20 12:54 pm (UTC)When we were kids, dad would take us to the ballgames into the nosebleed sections & it cost like $5 per person. When we went to see the Phillies in 2011 it cost my dad, like, $75/person. But he really really wanted to take his grandkids to see the Phillies - the kids are growing up outside San Francisco but they love the idea of family in Philly so they like the baseball team, even though they've got no real interest in the sport (although I think my nephew is in little league).
I should put up that advanced degree - it's squished on a bookshelf somewhere. Would make me "hmmm" & "hawww" less.
Re: intelligent people w/intelligent people
Date: 2013-03-20 05:31 pm (UTC)$75 – that’s one more reason to give up sports entirely. Few kids are into baseball anymore. The kids and baseball thing is now a myth perpetuated by Woody Allen movies. Star Wars was our baseball.
Frame it, hang it on the wall and let it shine. Oh yeah, let it shine.
Re: Burning River
Date: 2013-03-20 06:02 pm (UTC)Yeah, the thing with baseball is how far the professional teams are to kids (well, & for every other sport). I think that's one of the reasons why my dad gets so flummoxed that his grandkids don't adore it. He grew up in the 1940s & '50s when it was one of the most solid forms of entertainment & there were stickball games all over the place, all the time.
Makes AAA teams that much more appealing.
Re: Burning River
Date: 2013-03-20 10:41 pm (UTC)All that said, the Steelers still suck.
Re: Burning River
Date: 2013-03-20 11:32 pm (UTC)Still, talking about baseball makes me want to bug my friends ND & MD to watch Bull Durham. MD was the one who explained the importance of watching a movie about spring training & a summer sport (and a small, local team) at this time of the year.
And, oh god, yeah the Steeler's suck.
Re: Burning River
Date: 2013-03-21 08:37 pm (UTC)Candlesticks always make a nice gift…
You know it. [high five!]
Re: Burning River
Date: 2013-03-21 09:32 pm (UTC)I did write to my friend, MD, and ask her if she, her son & husband would let me over to watch Bull Durham and she sort of replied, "Hell yes - I need that." Now we've got to figure out a time. She also introduced me to "Fishing with John" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishing_with_John) and there are some episodes of that in Thailand that make you think of warmth; but I think we need something that captures us unhindered for 2 hours.
no subject
Date: 2013-03-20 07:11 am (UTC)Marching Mor....
Date: 2013-03-20 12:13 pm (UTC)