Don't just read it! Help put the Action in Action Philosophers with this Activities Guide below.
1. After making a devasting refutation of your opponent's arguments during a public dispute, leap upon him violently, shouting "PLATO SMASH!"2. Shout taunting Bodhidharmic koans at Kung Fu students, then run like heck.
3. Make copies of Jefferson's "la-la-la I can't hear you" page and post them at Monticello.
4. Rearrange your comic book collection in the sequence of Campbells' "Hero's Journey" boardgame.
5. Copy the page where Freud pisses himself while arguing with Jung and tape it surreptitiously on a psychiatrist's back.
6. Console anyone so foolish as to have read Rand while young enough to have taken her seriously with the fact that, although she did have Philosophy's Worst Public Meltdown and destroyed her life's work in the process just because she got dumped, she's left a lasting legacy in the lyrics to Human League's "Don't You Want Me, Baby?"
7. Next time you see Bryan Singer remind him that the overt Christian imagery his (and the original) film superimposes on the Superman myth is antithetical with the Nietzschean ideal as expressed by the character's Jewish creators. So there.
8. Tell Catholics that St. Augustine was black. Tell blacks he was Catholic.
9. Remind Kirby Kultists that Jack's only significant literary contribution to comics was written by a crazed Iraqi mystic in the third century. Then move on to a Star Wars fan.
10. Hire Mike W. Barr to write a comic based on the Seven Sons of Light versus the Seven Sons of Dark.
11. Show a Brit the picture of the Queen of England as Jabba the Hutt.
12. Teach a Protestant that the crux of their religion was stolen from the Cult of Mithras.
13. Establish a "Small Philosophers Expo" in your town.
14. Find a Black man named "Jefferson" and give him your copy.
15. Deride negative teenagers as Socratically old-fashioned.
16. Hit a fat guy with your car and tell the police you thought it was Buddha.
17. Pay vandals to spraypaint "Auggie Sucks!" on your local cathedral.
18. Dress like the Village People and explain that you've got a new career as a Philospher-King.
19. Stage an "All People Are Equal" puppet show for the neighborhood children.
20. Demonstrate to any zealot that all philosophies undo themselves through overadherence to absolutes.
Philosophy; it's fun for the whole family!
7. Next time you see Bryan Singer remind him that the overt Christian imagery his (and the original) film superimposes on the Superman myth is antithetical with the Nietzschean ideal as expressed by the character's Jewish creators. So there.
ReplyDeleteWill do!
Action Philosophers is probably my favorite comic. Why? Because any comic that has a young boy meet Karl Marx and say "Gee willikers, Mr. Marx!" as they go on a time-travelling adventure to learn about the labor theory of value is a great freakin' comic.
ReplyDeleteWit! Intelligence! Fun!
Holy crap! Great comics!
PLATO SMASH!
OK, I'm an idiot, so I have to ask, what Kirby gift to literature was created by an Iraqi mystic?
ReplyDeleteThe Fourth World?
The Fourth World is extremely similar to Manicheism.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait for the upcoming Wittgenstein issue, as I am a Wittgenstein fanatic.
ReplyDeleteUh - - Scipio, Ayn Rand doesn't really have anything to do with the lyrics to the Human League song, does she? (Cause, you know, that would be really cool too...)
Oh -- Glad you made it back safely from THE FUTURE!
Actually, I'm still IN the future, this is a tachyon pulse post...
ReplyDeleteAs for Ayn, well, technically, no; but her public rebuke of her ex-lover before all their colleagues (reprised in the comic) is VERY similar to the lyrics of the Human League song.
Ayn Rand was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar when she met the guy? Did he pick her out, shook her up, and turned her around, turned her into someone new? Or was it that even then she knew she'd find a much better place, either with or without him, but now she thinks it's time she lived her life on her own?
ReplyDeleteSo THAT'S what Atlas Shrugged is about. Good, now I don't have to read it.
Hey, YOU read the comic and tell me that's not her life story!
ReplyDeleteIs Panaetius mentioned? Or Epicurean philosophy by way of Lucretius?
ReplyDeleteNononononono. No.
ReplyDeleteSuperman is *not* the Neitzchean superman, despite the name. That's insulting to both Neitzche's ideas and Superman himself.
Hey, if Iraqis had boomtube technology that justifies all the action in Iraq! Who said philosophy was useless?
ReplyDeleteIt's not well known, but when you travel from one state to another, at the exact moment you enter the new state (or at least the exact moment you see the sign for the next state) you actually go through a Boom Tube. (I'd recommend making the "boom" sound yourself, though. And don't tell your passengers what you are doing either.)
ReplyDeleteDammit - you're giving away all our best jokes!
ReplyDelete10. Hire Mike W. Barr to write a comic based on the Seven Sons of Light versus the Seven Sons of Dark.
Forget that hack - hire ME!!!
"Hey, if Iraqis had boomtube technology that justifies all the action in Iraq! Who said philosophy was useless?"
ReplyDeleteJerry Falwell must have heard something about an Iraqi "anti-life equation" and thought it had something to do with abortion.
Hey, Ryan ... I'd subscribe to it! It would beat the New Olympians, the New Gods, the New Guardians all to heck.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, do you play Heroclix? Because "Action Philosopher" clix would be the best thing ever!
Actually I understood The Fourth World as a rather optimistic comment on and against the Manichean Model. Yes, it's a good vs. evil, dualistic world - but good seems to conquer evil. "The Pact" serves as a comment, that morals are not generated either by heritage or upbringing: Scott Free is brought up on Apokolips, but escapes; and the son of Darkseid himself, Orion, is changed to a force for good. Kirby was a bit to liberal for black/white-modus. More manichaen is probably Ditko with his Mr. A (is A)
ReplyDeleteIn some ways, I think Kirby's fourth world was his commentary on the Bible, and being Jewish. I have written elsewhere about how FOREVER PEOPLE #3 is Kirby's most "jewish" comic book. And -- the anti-life equation is in some ways Jack's answer to the question "Why did so many germans go along with the Nazis?"
ReplyDeleteDo Metron and Black Racer fit into a manichaen mythology? One puts knowledge ahead of the struggle between 'good' and 'evil'. The other is death incarnate, who eventually comes for both the wicked and the just.
ReplyDelete...the anti-life equation is in some ways Jack's answer to the question "Why did so many germans go along with the Nazis?"
ReplyDeletePlus, Televangelists are Nazis. (via Godfrey)
"12. Teach a Protestant that the crux of their religion was stolen from the Cult of Mithras."
ReplyDeleteWrong! And a typical example of someone believing whatever media hype they read.
http://tektonics.org/copycat/mithra.html
http://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-Mithra-Christianity-Zoroastrianism.html
http://www.carm.org/evidence/mithra.htm
http://www.comereason.org/cmp_rlgn/cmp070.asp
"20. Demonstrate to any zealot that all philosophies undo themselves through overadherence to absolutes."
That right there is an absolute statement. Everybody adheres to a their own set of absoultes, like it or not. "There are no absolutes" or "absolutes are bad" are also absolute statements.
"10. Hire Mike W. Barr to write a comic based on the Seven Sons of Light versus the Seven Sons of Dark."
ReplyDeleteSome time during the 80s, Doug Moench did that. It was pretty bad.
"And a typical example of someone believing whatever media hype they read."
ReplyDeleteMedia hype?
Sir, I studied the Mithras Cult, through original texts, as part of my double major in Latin and Greek at Dartmouth College. Unlike you, my knowledge of it comes from personal study, not some internet links.
Therefore, it seems to me that your reply is "a typical example of someone believing whatever media hype they read."
Good going moron, it took you four months to reply to one comment!
ReplyDeleteSir, I studied the Mithras Cult, through original texts, as part of my double major in Latin and Greek at Dartmouth College. Unlike you, my knowledge of it comes from personal study, not some internet links.
Oh great. Another Ivy League moron who thinks he knows more than everyone else. Just because you paid too much to have some asshole liberals elitist teach you don't prove anything.
Maybe the guy didn't learn from the web links. Maybe he was just posting supporting material to back up his claims (something you have yet to do). Besides, if you're such an expert, then why not just disprove him instead of gloating?
Therefore, it seems to me that your reply is "a typical example of someone believing whatever media hype they read."
Oh please. You know damn well that ever since the Da Vinci Code came out the media has been jizzing over the "secret origins" of Christianity. So it's easier to "go with the flow".
And no, I'm not a Christian. I just hate elitist pricks who think they know shit. Most so-called "intellectuals" simply have their heads so far up their asses to even bother checking the facts in their ideas.
Christianity didn't steal from Mithrism. The similarities are often greatly exaggerated.