Det var C.S Lewis, han med Narniaböckerna alltså, som hittade på det. Jag orkar inte sammanfatta vad han menade så jag saxar ur Wikipedia:
Some day I am going to write the biography of its* imaginary inventor, Ezekiel Bulver, whose destiny was determined at the age of five when he heard his mother say to his father — who had been maintaining that two sides of a triangle were together greater than a third — "Oh you say that because you are a man." "At that moment", E. Bulver assures us, "there flashed across my opening mind the great truth that refutation is no necessary part of argument. Assume that your opponent is wrong, and explain his error, and the world will be at your feet. Attempt to prove that he is wrong or (worse still) try to find out whether he is wrong or right, and the national dynamism of our age will thrust you to the wall." That is how Bulver became one of the makers of the Twentieth Century.
*bulverismens
Jag tror nog inte att bulverism kommer att slå igenom som uttryck - "sluta genast upp med din bulverism", "bulverisera mig inte", "bulveriserar du mig så pulveriserar jag dig". För att det är konstruerat utifrån en fiktiv biografi som aldrig blev skriven, om en figur, Bulver, som aldrig funnits, kanske det inte känns så nära till hands att dra till med det. Men jag vet inte om det används i engelskspråkiga länder. Jag kommer mest att tänka på Bulwer-Lytton, som skrev den melodramatiska Pompejis sista dagar. Men det är ett stickspår.
Hur som helst så går bulverism ut på att man istället för att visa på vilket sätt man menar att en person har fel, så utgår man att personen har fel och talar om varför. Och jo, "för att du är vit heterosexuell man" är nog en av de vanligaste bulverismerna idag.
Ibland kan det ligga något i bulverismen. Det vill säga, man kan ha en blind fläck som gör att man feltolkar eller helt enkelt inte begriper ett annat perspektiv, på grund av en helt annan erfarenhet. I klassisk retorik tillhör bulverismen Ad hominem - argumenten.
I all hafs,
etc etc
(Videon har inget med inlägget att göra tror jag, men BBC:s Walk on the wild side är väldigt roligt om någon missat det)
There's some connections here with a sentence in Klemperer's book; about the way Nazis (I think he quoted Goebbels) pretended to "unmask" the jewish culture and neutralise it, just by revealing that the speaker was jew and - just for that reason - unworth paying attention to.
SvaraRaderaThe ad hominem rhetorics don't have to be totalitarian (it's just unfair: you aren't married, you can't talk about marriage etc.), but ideological, modern style bulverism is, no matter if it calls itself marxist or whatever.
I remind myself taking up this subject with my dad, and that he noticed "you don't need to be an egg yourself to get how an omelette is made"
Yes there is a connection! Sorry bout the late reply, I´m trying to sleep this stupid bronchitis away. "you don-t need to be an egg yourself to get how an omelett is made" is very nice! Ska sova vidare ett tag, på återh.
RaderaEntartung/entartet, another ent-word the nazis liked...
RaderaSorry too sjuk to answer. What is this. Nikotintuggumminna åker ut
Bulverism är nog ett ganska bra uttryck. Det låter bra. Spelar väl ingen roll att Ezekiel Bulver aldrig existerat :-)
RaderaAd hominem arguments are a lot of things, not all of them are completely false or unfair.
Quoque tu can be relevant, depends on how and why it's said. I was thinking about a friend of mine long time ago, she was black but started to sympathize with ideologies that very clearly stated that she was an inferior race - is it or is it not bulverism to say: you can't/should'nt symathize with that because you're black.
Funderar lite på det du skriver att modern, ideological bulverism always is totalitarian, whereas older bulverism was simply unfair. Not sure I get it/ agree.
Blurrig i huvudet, vet inte om det går att läsa.
Måste fundera lite mer på skillnaden mellan modern bulverism and old fashioned ad hominem-arguments - are you sure about this Zamenhof?
RaderaFirst of all I wish you to recover soon!
SvaraRaderaAbout old-new ...I probably wrote too fast, as usual. But I still think it is different if you deny someone the right to have a sound opinion because of individual egenskaper, or if you make an ideology out of it ("no Swede / muslim / woman etc. can be a true artist" - and then, logically, they should not be admitted into an art school etc.). Totalitarian because systematic. But in many case there is little difference, I did not want to build up a theory about this.
Totalitarianism in a way ...it is modern by definition. Because the concepts applies to modern societies. But who knows.
Concerning "you can't/should'nt symathize with that because you're black", it is quite different if you say "you can't" or "you shouldn't". I have no problems with you shouldn't.
ps: sad 70th roman anniversary today (or rather yesterday)
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rastrellamento_del_ghetto_di_Roma
Thanks, Zamenhof. I wish so too, his is really crazy.
RaderaAH! yes, agree. It-s different. But that kind of totalitarianism was maybe even more common in old times (I think, maybe). I mean jews, or women, or black people, weren't allowed to do a lot of things förr i världen, or trälar i fornnorden, I think the vi-och-dom-thinking was more absolute before upplysningen (not meant to claim Europe is best, at least not i praktiken).
I meant this is really crazy, of course :-)
RaderaEftersom det är Åsa Beckman som skriver det så finns det ingen relevans. Det är inte så Jenny Högström skriver i Helsingborgs dagblad, men viss finns det bulverism i artikeln.
SvaraRaderahttp://hd.se/kultur/2013/10/09/bisarrt-beckman/
Snabbläst, ska kolla artikeln noggrannare vid tillfälle. Jag gillade inte heller Åsa Beckmans artikel, och det berodde inte bara på att det var ÅB som skrev ;-)
Radera"I think the vi-och-dom-thinking was more absolute before upplysningen"
SvaraRaderaThat's a big question. It's not a question about upplysningen, it is THE question of what upplysningen and modernity really have meant, if racism is a modern or an universal circumstance, etc etc.
I'm laughing now because this reminds me of a passionate dialogue I had with a friend who is a specialist of art history, theory etc. "Your questions are not questions about Contemporary art - she told me - They are THE question of Contemporary art".
That was the end of the story and so our friendship ended (more or less), ih ih.
Yes, I think Upplysningen didn't necessarily include "other races". Honestly I haven't read enough of the enlightenment filosophy to tell wit certainty, but I think that the égalité-fraternité-liberté-thought was quite possible to combine with xenophobia or racism. I should read Montesquieu sometime… if I survive this, it feels like I'm dying. Don't know why, it just does. Anyway: the nazis picked up a very primitive aspect of humanity, syndabocksmekanismen, that I think has always existed, probably in all cultures, but it became more monstrous when combined with modern rationality. This is more or less René Girards view of it, and I agree (although I don't agree with everything RG says). In a sense it was far too late for antisemitism. It should have been a medieval thing abandoned long time ago. But it hadn't been, because mankind is more or less the same as ever.
SvaraRaderaA bit simplified… Atossa already woke me up three times tonight so I guess I do have a sleeping problem….
To put it in the simplest way ...I guess man had to think to society as a rational (organised, medically defined) "body" in order to exclude - in a scientific, definitive way - someone from the body. This is the thesis of Frankfurt school, H. Arendt etc. I guess it is also a kind of an ideology, it can be more or less correct as a description of reality.
SvaraRaderaAnother related question, I became aware of when I started - is how low was the status of such pessimist worldview in Sweden for a long time (Foucault is another example of it). That's why it was so difficult to question the social ingeneering, for example. "Intellectual masochism" - said the professor at Stock U. when we talked about it.
But now, I know, you are all become post-post modern etc.
Try not to die, please. I mean, not in the middle of a conversation :) I can't think of Atossa without thinking of "tosse" (toux), sorry for that.
"when I started" traveling there and doing research, I wanted to say.
SvaraRadera"how low was the status of such pessimist worldview in Sweden for a long time" - yes, absolutely true. I think it still is - René Girards Syndabocken (a collection of his writings) didn't have many reviews, for instance.
Raderasvarar längre sen, nä jag tror inte jag dör av det här det var mest ynk-pynk, men jag är trött på det
nynnar på Håkan Hellströms det kommer aldrig va över för mig, idag är hostan ganska bra men örat, örat... :-(
RaderaAutofiktiv förkylning vad sägs, va? Ska jag berätta vilken färg det är på mitt snor?
Jo Zamenhof, jag håller med: framstegstanken har varit mycket dominerande i Sverige, den har väl sina rötter i protestantismen och för socialdemokratins del allra mest i frireligiositeten. Och där passar inte tanken att människan möjligen kan vara obotligt ond in (jag skulle vilja göra en sån där djävulssmiley nu, men det går inte).
Oui oui you are an optimistic people. I mean, all except Ingmar Bergman and a few others sad boys (and girls, but mostly boys. Maybe).
SvaraRaderaA fun/serious explanation could also be that you HAVE to be optimistic because if you lose the utopia you'd fall into the most dark of all pessimism's (arvsynd, self-culpabilisation etc). Oversimplification of a big subject, of course. And you know better, you're born there.
Interesting contradiction, in south italy they are known to be "fatalisti", no trust and no confidence, tragedy is around the corner, but finally they enjoy life...
Dysterhet, yes. Life's a piece of shit when you think of it, as the song goes. Lou Reed described Sweden like this: ”det är ganska öde, alla är fulla och allt fungerar”.
RaderaEn väldigt äcklig autofiktionstävling hade kunnat gå så här: den som kan gissa vilken färg det är på mitt snor får en Snickers.
RaderaIt's difficult to measure happiness, but - as a whole, I think - maye - swedes enjoy life more than people in Southern Italy. Above all because the economic and political circumstances are easier, but also because of the sort of lighter (less heavy) and simpler lifestyle. I'm not particularly fond om Bergman, I prefer Norén, very dark as well - but not darker than many french authors, and of course it's impossible to sätta likhetstecken mellan litteratur och ett lands allmänna mentalitet
RaderaStrålande!
SvaraRaderaMen tack snowflake. Jag skulle vilja tillägga något - apropå bulverism alltså - att det antagligen, på det stora hela, är ett större problem när människor (på grund av bakgrund eller nuläge) inte förstår andra som har det sämre eller som har det annorlunda - än när bulverism ibland används i retoriken. Men bulverism kan verkligen vara helt förskräcklig. Auktoritär, tvärsäker, självrättfärdig. Jag råkade snubbla över en nyligen - "han säger så för att han är med i en sekt", ungefär. "Det han säger är ett bevis på att han är med i en sekt". Ruskiga tongångar vars detaljer jag inte kan gå in på nu - inte än. Tjakloff så länge.
Radera"Man behöver inte vara ett ägg för att veta hur man gör omelett" - strålande sentens av din pappa, Zamenhof. :-)
SvaraRaderaAlla sådana här (och dylika) resonemang kan utnyttjas av försåtliga typer - Stina Oscarson, som gått från självrättfärdig plakatvänster till slirig högerpopulism.
Allt kan plundras, exploateras, osv.
Men i alla fall, råkade hamna i den här tråden och blev full av beundran för "man behöver inte vara ett ägg..."
Misstänker faktiskt att jag inspirerats av det, när jag formulerade det mindre fyndiga om att knäcka samma ägg flera gånger (apropå aspekter av metoo då en och samma person dras i långbänk)
Trevlig walpurgis önskar tröst för tigerhjärtan eder alla