Irony through pictures

Calvin and Hobbes Comics

Some cute and thoughtful comics from Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson. Click to enlarge images.







I don't subscribe to the kind of nihilist existentialism you see in C&H sometimes. My concern though is to see if we can break open from the confines of phenomenology into the ontology of reality, before death. That's where spirituality comes in. (if these words are too elusive, consider this mundane illustration: think about the scene of Matrix pod in the first part from which Neo was ejected!).

A few quotes from C&H that I also like (I couldn't find the comic images):

"You know how Einstein got bad grades as a kid? Well, mine are even worse!"
-Calvin

"So the secret to good self-esteem is to lower your expectations to the point where they're already met?"
-Calvin

"When I grow up, I'm not going to read the newspaper and I'm not going to follow complex issues and I'm not going to vote. That way I can complain when the government doesn't represent me. Then, when everything goes down the tubes, I can say the system doesn't work and justify my further lack of participation."
-Calvin

"You know how people are. They only recognize greatness when some authority confirms it."
-Calvin

"Life is like topography, Hobbes. There are summits of happiness and success... ...Flat stretches of boring routine... ...And valleys of frustration and failure."
-Calvin

"What I like is when you're looking and thinking and looking and thinking... And suddenly you wake up."
-Calvin

"You know, there are times when it's a source of personal pride to not be human."
-Hobbes

"I had resolved to be less offended by human nature, but I think I blew it already."
-Hobbes

"Being a parent is wanting to hug and strangle your kid at the same time."
-Calvin's Dad

“I try to make everyone’s day a little more surreal.”
-Calvin

“I used to make original snowmen, but it was time consuming, hard work. So I said, heck, this is crazy! Now I crank out crude imitations of what’s already popular! It takes no time or thought, and most people don’t care about the difference, anyway! And what good is originality if you can’t crank it out?”
-Calvin

“Now, a lifetime of experience has left me bitter and cynical.”
-Calvin

"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don’t realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.”
-Calvin

“Nobody asks me how things oughta be! I’ve got tons of ideas!”
-Calvin

“These are interesting times. We don’t trust the government, we don’t trust the legal system, we don’t trust the media, and we don’t trust each other! We’ve undermined all authority, and with it, the basis for replacing it! It’s like a six-year-old’s dream come true!”
-Calvin

“If it was completely different, school would be great.”
-Calvin

“My time is valuable. I can’t go on thinking about one subject for minutes on end. I’m a busy man.”
-Calvin

"Did you ever wonder if the person in the puddle is real, and you're just a reflection of him?"
-Calvin

"Since September it's just gotten colder and colder. There's less daylight now, I've noticed too. This can only mean one thing - the sun is going out. In a few more months the Earth will be a dark and lifeless ball of ice. Dad says the sun isnt going out. He says its colder because the earth's orbit is taking us farther from the sun. He says winter will be here soon. Isn't it sad how some people's grip on their lives is so precarious that they'll embrace any preposterous delusion rather than face an occasional bleak truth?"
-Calvin, about to become aware of the concept of winter...

"I like maxims that don’t encourage behavior modification."
-Calvin

"I understand my tests are popular reading in the teachers’ lounge."
-Calvin

"I wanted to be a neo-deconstructivist but Mom wouldn't let me."
-Calvin

"Oh, great altar of passive entertainment... Bestow upon me thy discordant images at such speed as to render linear thought impossible!"
-Calvin

“I’m yet another resource-consuming kid in and overpopulated planet, raised to an alarming extent by Madison Avenue and Hollywood, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you’re old and weak.”
-Calvin

"I think life should be more like tv. I think all of life's problems ought to be solved in 30 minutes with simple homilies, don't you? I think weight and oral hygiene ought to be our biggest concerns. I think we should all have powerful, high-paying jobs, and everyone should drive fancy sports cars. All our desires should be instantly gratified. Women should always wear tight clothes, and men should carry powerful handguns. Life overall should be more glamorous, thrill-packed, and filled with applause, don't you think?"
-Calvin

"Dear Santa. Why is your operation located at the North Pole? I’m guessing cheap elf labour, lower environmental standards, and tax breaks. Is this really the example you want to set for us impressionable kids?" …My plan is to put him on the defensive before he considers how good I’ve been.
-Calvin

"Oh look, yet another Christmas TV special! How touching to have the meaning of Christmas brought to us by cola, fast food, and beer conglomerates. Who'd have ever guessed that product consumption, popular entertainment, and spirituality would mix so harmoniously? It's a beautiful world all right."
-Calvin

“Some diabolical fiend threatens to establish a totalitarian system of rule! Only Stupendous Man can save the day!…Aha! Just as I suspected! My evil arch-nemesis, Mom-Lady!”
-Calvin

"I'm a simple man, Hobbes."
"You?? Yesterday you wanted a nuclear powered car that could turn into a jet with laser-guided heat-seeking missiles!"
"I'm a simple man with complex tastes."

"I'm not going to so my maths homework. Look at these unsolved problems. Here's a number in mortal combat with another. One of them is going to get subtracted. But why? What will be left of him? If I answered these, it would kill the suspense. It would resolve the conflict and turn intriguing possibilities into boring old facts."
"I never really thought about the literary possibilities of maths."
"I prefer to savour the mystery."

"Dad, I'd like to have a little talk."
"Um...ok."
"As the wage earner here, its your responsibility to show some consumer confidence and start buying things that will get the economy going and create profits and employment. Here's a list of some big-ticket items I'd like for Christmas. I hope I can trust you to do whats right for our country."
"I've got to stop leaving the Wall Street Journal around."

"This meeting of the Get Rid Of Slimy Girls club will now come to order. First Tiger Hobbes will read the minutes of our last meeting."
"Thank you. (9:30) Meeting called to order. Dictator For Life Calvin proposed resoultion condemning the existence of girls. (9:35) First Tiger Hobbes abstains from vote. Motion fails. (9:36) Patriotism of First Tiger called into question. (9:37) Philosophical discussion. (10:15) Bandages administered. Dictator For Life rebuked for biting."
"Is this a great club or what?"
"(10:16) Forgot what debate was about. Medals of bravery awarded to all parties."

Engaging Raj Patel's "The Value of Nothing"

I have not read Raj Patel's latest book yet, except for parts of its first chapter. Just read John Gray's review. I thought Gray raises an important question which remains an issue for materialist ideologies/movements fighting against materialism/capitalism. I touched upon this in a previous post, here. Yet, based on my previous reading and listening to Raj's work, I have a feeling that Gray might have under-appreciated Raj's call for a substantial change in how we value things and live our life; Gray may have read Raj through the lens of socialist/labor-rights/progressive movements that Raj is closed to in his activism, instead of reading the book on its own merit. But I can be wrong too.

On a side note, do check out a promotional video of the book that Raj has published online.

Excerpts:

Review: The Value of Nothing by Raj Patel
By John Gray, The Observer, December 13, 2009
Source

"Part of the problem is the belief that price and value are for most purposes one and the same. This equation makes it possible for them to develop impressive-looking mathematical models of the economy, but it involves a huge oversimplification of reality. As Raj Patel explains in this penetrating and admirably concise guide to the follies of market fundamentalism, the notion that the value of a good is its price obscures the complexity of markets and of human beings. Theories of efficient markets take the shifting abstractions generated by the price mechanism as actually existing entities but, as Patel puts it, using one of many vivid metaphors that stud his argument, this is like being in the simulated world of The Matrix, surrounded by "a digital rain of symbols and signs".

The seeming precision of the computer screen suggests that something substantial is being measured and exchanged, when in fact what is being traded are virtual assets whose relations with actual resources are tangled and hidden..."
...

"Contrary to the claims of economists, the belief that price equals value is not science, an accurate representation of the world, but ideology – a way of obfuscating the world."
...

"Much of what passes as economics is ideology and ideology only works if those who produce it also believe in it. The difficulty of the present situation comes from the fact that while few any longer believe in the free market, no one has an alternative to it that is able to command widespread support. Predictably, the financial storm has jolted moribund Marxist theories back into a semblance of life..."
...

"A passionate activist, he believes problems of resource scarcity are man-made and can always be solved by fairer distribution. However, the growth-oriented lifestyle of rich countries is not unsustainable because it is unjust; it is unsustainable because the Earth's resources are unalterably finite. It may be true that the imbalance between human demands and the environment could be diminished if enough people rejected material affluence as their main goal in life. But this is an extremely nebulous possibility and one that highlights the deepest difficulty for Patel's analysis.

Oscar Wilde may have been right that people know the price of everything and the value of nothing, a remark Patel cites at the start of his book, and which gives him its title. But what is value if it is not price? It is telling that when trying to flesh out a non-market account, Patel turns to religion, in this case Buddhism. The Buddhist tradition gives him what he needs – an understanding of human wellbeing that does not centre round the satisfaction of wants. Like the ancient European Stoic and Epicurean philosophies, Buddhism proposes that happiness lies in shrinking the self – in giving up our wants, rather than forever chasing after them. It is a thought that occurs to many well-off people from time to time, but it is hard to imagine large numbers of people ever acting on it.

Theories of value that focus on curbing desire run up against the demand for self-realisation, which is one of the strongest impulses in modern life. To be sure, the pursuit of self-realisation does not often result in happiness. But is it happiness that most people are pursuing? Or is it stimulus and excitement? In the Himalayan Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan, Patel informs the reader, the introduction of satellite television has been followed by a crime wave. He seems to think this fact somehow strengthens his argument. But what it tells us is that no culture can now resist the dangerous charms of a life spent in insatiable desire."

The Illusion of Two-State Solution

The cartoon is taken from MRZine: "As the driver of the "settlement" bulldozer removes the ground beneath his feet while blowing "two-state solution" soap bubbles, Mahmoud Abbas daydreams about a "sovereign Palestinian state." Fahd Bahady is a Syrian cartoonist. The text above is an interpretation of the cartoon by Yoshie Furuhashi."

I also liked the analogy by Avi Shlaim about the reality of "peace talks": It is like "two men negotiating the division of a pizza with one of them continuing to swallow chunks of it."

On how unrealistic (and increasingly out-dated) this solution is, see: How Realistic is the Two-State Solution at http://islamicinsights.com/news/international-news/how-realistic-is-the-two-state-solution.html

Also see Joseph Massad's excellent piece, How surrendering Palestinian rights became the language of "peace" at http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11034.shtml

See the bottom of the following page for an excellent list of material on the issue: http://gazaawareness.blogspot.com/