Stan K-B writes on my posting about "Reading Lolita
in Washington": "a sea shanty in my repertoire says: “The best of
intentions, they never go far/ After forty-two days on the floor of a
bar.”
Isn't there an Arab proverb about "the path to hell
is paved with roses" and another that states "Hell is paved with good intentions"? I fear dangerous ideological
tamperings never stop on the floor of a bar.
You mentioned LOW TQ ( translation quotient) from
Hebrew to Greek Septuagint. Umberto Eco wondered about how did God
address Adam and what language did Adam speak after his encounter. If a "Perfect
Language" existed we would have no Low TQ's since it would serve as a golden
referent - but I fear we would then derive no pleasure discussing Nabokov
in our Lists: polysemic generation of simultaneous contrasting paths
in a novel would become a thing of the past.
I loved to follow the contours of your wooly blue
hat - even if often missing the main thread of
its... syllogistic implications?
You asked: "Does this fact vitiate the JS/CK
unification hypothesis? A sane ‘atheist ‘ (or maybe ‘agnostic’?) poet vs a
deranged Deist (Defender of the Faith!) commentator?" and offered a brief
summary in the end: "JS and CK can never agree — because, being neighbours,
they are arguing from DIFFERENT PREMISES!".
So, as it looks to me, we got nowhere concerning the
"unification hypothesis". Except, of course, that we
all must divided be ( like St. Augustine's with body and soul,
like Shakespeare and his beloved, like Narcissus and his image
or Pascal between reason's reasons and his heart's) and
that no exception welds JS's torn provincial garden to
CK's premises. Would a Perfect Language also spirit away all
the Logicians?
Jansy